As my friend and I were trolling Chautauqua Lake this weekend we saw some strange fish. We saw several fish swimming on the surface at different locations and times throughout the day on Saturday. At first, we thought they were large shad. Once we got a better look at them, we were almost embarrassed to tell each other what we thought they were. They were paddlefish between 12-20". We ended up seeing 7 or 8 of them over the weekend. Saw most of them in the North end but also 1 in the South end.

I just did a search and saw that 500 14.5" paddlefish were stocked in Chautauqua last year. I am not sure what purpose they will serve or how it will affect the lake but there seems to be a bunch of them if we saw that many in a weekend. Maybe they are naturally reproducing also. They get huge and I think it's only a matter of time before I snag one trolling for muskies. The biggest fish to ever come out of Chautauqua lake is supposed to be a 6' 120lb paddlefish in 1872.