NewsLeader - Elk Poaching

[dennishoddy]

On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2015 at 11:10 PM, fishinwrench said:

Honestly I've never counted them, but yeah sublegal Spoonbill floating dead and along the banks from white branch to Porter Mill bend on LO is typical every year.  Turtle food, and we are gonna ruin a guys life over it ?    Whatever.  Some shock time and a 5k fine would have been appropriate, but treating the dude like he just raped a school bus load full of children and killed the driver?   No I can't get behind that.  

I fish the tailwaters below Kaw lake in Oklahoma. Snagging spoonbill is a late spring rite for myself and many others on different lakes around Oklahoma. We are restricted to barbless hooks, so the fish can be caught and released easily. It leave no bigger wound than any fisherman has had by hanging a hook in their fingers/arms/heads. We don't see the banks lined with dead fishermen. I live near the river about 10 miles downstream. I can count on one hand how many I've seen floating down stream for the 20+ years I've lived here while riding the ATV on the sandbars.

Unless you have environmental issues, which I doubt, or idiots that are harvesting the roe for caviar and tossing the carcasses back into the river, I seriously doubt the report. 

[fishinwrench]

Does OK buy their paddlefish from MO or do they raise their own ?

[MOPanfisher]

I have seen a lot of spoonbill carcasses, mostly around ramps, an very poorly cleaned or sometimes just dumped.  I have seen a few on LOZ or truman that were sublegal dead fish.  Spoonbill carcasses rotting in the sun can make a ramp a place you don't stay long at.