Why? Just leave them alone this year. The snag and release never has made sense to me.
Right?!?!
While I am not a fisheries biologist, I have had issues with NDGF's management of paddlefish for years.
We went from having a limit of a fish a day, to two fish per year, to one fish per year, to one fish per year and reduced fishing area (making it an even more congested clusterf%@k than it needs to be. To now having specific catch and keep days mixed in with catch and release only days.
After all these years of concern by NDGF and they still insist that the p-fish population MUST be self-sustaining, e.g. no stocking.
Add to that and an absolute refusal to even consider any kind of harvest on p-fish in the stretch of Missouri below Garrison, even though it's apparent there's been a self-sustaining population of them despite Garrison Dam.
Yeah, this is probably the single biggest issue I have with NDGF.