When a Cassville fisherman spotted a metal ring on a paddlefish he snagged, he knew conservation officials would want to see it.
Joe Richter landed his 57-pound catch on Table Rock’s James River arm back in March, according to a news release from Missouri Department of Conservation. There was a small metal ring attached to the jaw of the paddlefish.
Richter remembered that MDC had conducted a paddlefish program several years ago and reached out to the department where biologist Trish Yasger connected with him.
Yasger, along with fisheries biologist Sara Tripp, had a list of the 8,970 tags put on paddlefish during MDC’s tagging project from 2015 to 2019.