(Radio Iowa) – The Missouri and Big Sioux River paddlefish licenses and tags are now on sale for the season that opens February 1st. John Lorenzen is the D-N-R’s fisheries biologist for Southwest Iowa. “So there are one-thousand tags available, 950 are available to residents and 50 are available to non residents,” he says. Lorenzen says you can buy up to two tags up to December 31st and an additional tag if there are some available from January 1st to January 7th, He says most of the tags are usually scooped up.

“For the most part, we sell out. I haven’t looked into the numbers so far. What we expect for numbers this year, although I would you know, I would assume we’d sell out again as we have in the past,” he says. The prehistoric looking fish are snagged with a hook in a method that’s different from catching most fish. “They have a, it’s called a rostrum. It’s like a giant spoon on the front of their face and they have a very large mouth, and they basically just swim around filtering zooplankton and things like that out of the water,” he says.

“And that’s what they feed on, so they’re not the typical sport fish that’s going to bite on like a crank bait. You know, you’re not casting and hoping they bite it. You’re trying to find where the fish are located.” Lorenzen says. Lorenzen says it’s likely many of the licenses are sold to people who live close to the two waterways, including the non resident licenses. “I can almost say with certainty that most of those are probably sold to Nebraska residents just because they live right across the river. Of the 950 resident tags that are available, I would say most people would be somewhat local just because, you know there’s other parts of the state, like on the eastern side of the state, if people wanted to paddle fish, they can do that on the Mississippi without having to travel over here to the Missouri side of the state.”

Lorenzen says most people have experience paddle fishing, or if they are new will find someone who does. )”It’s not as common or as well known as, you know, just throwing something on a bobber and catching bluegills or whatever in a pond,” He says. “You know, it takes the type of person who wants to try something completely different to be new at it. Otherwise you know most people out on the river usually have experience being on the river.”

A resident license sells for 25 dollars, 50 cents, and a nonresident license is 49 dollars. You must also have a valid Iowa fishing license to get a paddlefish license.