Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Spoonbills - the Second biggest freshwater fish I know of

This is a small one .. maybe 45 lbs… - the smallmales like this eat really well.


They are ancient plankton eaters, no bones … all cartilage… I steak them out and grill them like Swordfish.
The eggs (caviar) is better than the high end stuff, and is pricey as heck..


Snagging for them is a yearly event..




A couple from years past

That has to be super fun!!!

If you hook a big one in current she’ll tire you out and you shoulders hurt for days…

And yep, it’s as fun as all heck.

A 30lb male will fight a lot harder than a 60lb female. Been there and done that many times. I'm about 30 miles from Warsaw and started snagging in the 60s'. Going downstream the hookups were more forceful, especially with current.
Nowadays they just troll using Dippsy Divers and electronics... no jerking a heavy rod with a pound of lead. A different time.

I’m an hour away from Truman and the Osceola which is where that pic was taken…

But I’ve only been here 30 years.. LOL


I put a fish finder on the back of the boat so the people manning the poles can see the fish as we troll past them before they get to the hooks… \
It can get pretty exciting….


I put outrigger rod holders on my boat so 2 poles go straight back, and 2 hang off the sides… have Deepwater poles, and sea type reels to handle the stress, with 100lb test braid. I run dipsey, and at times I’ll run 2 or 3lb lead balls…

Trolling you move upstream at 2 mph with a dipsey, down river you move almost 5mph - it depends on the current… the dipsey has to be moving close to 3 mph.. I have a “through the water” speed sensor to help with that.


BTW - they will tell you the “live scope” from Garmin will work for targeting spoons in deep holes - you can see them and hit them with a hook maybe 5% of the time, but trolling is much funner, and more productive (Yes I have a live scope).

Sounds like they are fun fighters. Are state stocked them for years and never even saw one or hooked into one. Guess they didn’t do as good as they wanted. Sure would be neat to see one up close. The next big fish they are stocking right now are those giant blue cats. Can’t wait to see how they adapt.

Osceola, Roscoe, Taberville area?

Well the white sturgeon and alligator gar are both a lot bigger than the paddlefish. Pretty sure both the blue cat and the flathead are bigger as well. Just sayin...

My neice and her husband live in MO and they go after them every year. I think the biggest they have got is something like 81 pounds.

We have a catfish house here that has a mount on the wall of a blue that was 117lb iirc.

Dude that is so awesome! Nice work thanks for sharing

Doubt you will find many flathead that tip the scales at over 100#.

Missouri and Oklahoma state record spoonbills are 140 and 164#.

Tennessee 120# I believe and KS is 140#.

Fun fact, world record rod and reel flathead was 123#, caught below Elk City Reservoir dam about 10 miles from my dads house in southeast Kansas. Delivery driver was ahead of schedule and was trying to catch a few crappie and caught the catfish instead. There’s some tinfoil hat stories that go with it, but that’s the official version.

Haven’t been out for spoonbill yet this spring. Usually hit Table Rock. Did go out with Rusty Pritchards guide service on Grand Lake in Oklahoma back in the winter pulling dipsy diver knockoffs.

Guy in the news who caught the OK state record a couple years ago is an old classmate of mine. He saw the story of the guide breaking the record the week before and called him and booked a trip. Lo and behold he hooks and lands an even bigger one.

I’ve been once with a cousin who lives up in NE OK, we spent a weekend ripping trebles off the bank and didn’t get any hookups. I need to go back sometime but have a hard time leaving here when the crappie and saugeye bite is hot. Someday.