Jessie Wilkes hoped to catch some keeper-sized walleye when he and his buddy, Richard Wynne, went fishing at Beaver Lake on Monday. Instead, Wilkes caught a 105-pound paddlefish that broke the Arkansas state record.
It took both fishermen to wrestle the fish into the boat when Wilkes, of Springdale, caught it in the Beave-O-Rama area of the White River arm. Wilkes and Wynne were trolling crankbaits for walleye about 1:30 p.m. when Wilkes' lure snagged the paddlefish in the side. Paddlefish, also called spoonbills, feed on plankton and don't commonly bite lures or bait.
"I'd never felt anything like it. I was trying to work it in and every time we got it close to the boat he'd run as hard as he could. He ran a good four or five times. We chased it with the boat for a good 30 to 45 minutes before we got it in," Wilkes said.
The fish measured 65 inches long and had a 40-inch girth. Getting a 105-pound fish into the boat wasn't easy. They didn't have a net large enough.
"I don't think they make one big enough for a fish like that," Wilkes said. "Richard grabbed a hold of its paddle," Wilkes said, referring to the paddlefish's bill. "He got on one side of his head and I got on the other and we got it into the boat."
The state record isn't Wilkes' first go-around with large paddlefish. He'd hooked big ones before and got his line broken. This time he was ready, trolling with 30-pound test line.
Wilkes figured he had a state record as soon as the fish was in the boat.
"It's funny, because a week ago I was reading the newspaper article about the old state record, so I knew how big that fish was and how long," Wilkes said.
That fish was also caught at Beaver Lake and weighed 102 pounds, 8 ounces. Mike Curran of Rogers caught it on March 22, 2007.
Wilkes contacted Jon Stein, area fisheries biologist with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, to get the fish weighed and verified as a state record. They weighed the fish on certified scales at a FedEx shipping site where Stein had weighed potential record fish before.
Stein said he's never seen such a big paddlefish. There are more big ones out there, the biologist said. Game & Fish stocked paddlefish at Beaver Lake in the 1990s and Wilkes' fish is one of those, Stein said.
"So the ones that are in the lake are big. Most of them are over 60 pounds."
Wilkes and Wynne both have taxidermy skills, and Wilkes said he plans to make a fiberglass replica of his state record. Wilkes cleaned the paddlefish and said the meat is tasty.
"It's not walleye or crappie or flathead catfish, but it makes some good fish sticks," Wilkes said.
The two friends are used to fishing in the cold, as the weather was on Monday.
"It was 37 degrees when we put in. We had to break ice from the ramp out to about 30 yards," Wilkes said. They launched at the Don Roufa access near the U.S. 412 bridge.
"You can't catch a fish if you don't have a hook in the water," Wilkes added, "and you can't catch a state record fish if you don't go, even if it's cold."
Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip
Sports on 03/05/2015