FInally got the boat on the water this morning!

[Waterwings]

The caviar industry drives a big, illegal poaching industry creating overharvest of these fish. That's why the dept. changed their regs. regarding them in the last couple of years and made them illegal to sell.

They don't reproduce or grow fast enough to support a commercial fishery.

That adds even more mystery to the 6-7 good-sized ones floating dead at Pee Wee yesterday. I pretty much covered the entire 400+ acres of water there, and they were the only dead fish I saw.

 

[ben2go]

We call them spoonbill catfish around here. They have skin with no scales like a catfish but look more like a shark (if they didn't have the big snout). They are supposed to be plankton feeders but I have caught a couple in the mouth while white bass fishing. I don't know if it was coincidence or if they are sometimes just opportunistic.

There's big money in their roe for the caviar trade.

Could they be aggressive toward something(lure) that they think maybe taking their food and cause them to wanna bite it?

 

[Quackrstackr]

Could they be aggressive toward something(lure) that they think maybe taking their food and cause them to wanna bite it?

Possible.

I have heard of an instance of someone catching one on a limbline (and it wasn't a snagged fish) along with my own experiences, which makes me believe that the literature stating that they are stricly plankton feeders a bit untrue.

I forgot to mention that they have no bones, rather cartilage like a shark. My dad could ring one's tail with a knife and pull the cartilage straight out of one, leaving nothing but meat. The few times that I have tried it, I just wound up with a tailless fish. :lol: