Guide: New paddlefish world record likely to stand 'for a long, long time'
Keystone Lake 164-pounder falls to 18-year-old first-time paddlefish angler
A fishing party of three generations met up with yet another new world-record paddlefish pulled from Keystone Lake on Tuesday.
Guide Jeremiah Mefford of Reel Time Guide Service guided the anglers to numerous large paddlefish on the day and by the time they got to the last one he had the father, Jason Rader, piloting the boat, 18-year-old Grant Rader ready to hook and fight as he had been since 8 a.m., and grandfather Terry Rader serving as deckhand. They were ready for the fight.
The new world-record paddlefish caught by the youngest Rader weighed and measured by Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation fisheries biologist Jason Schooley was a non-reproductive female that tipped the scales at 164 pounds. Her total length, tip of the rostrum to tip of the tail, was 81.75 inches. Her official body length, eye to fork of the tail, was 56 inches. She sported a 43-inch girth, and inside the fish 27.8 pounds of fat surrounded its ovaries, Schooley said.
“It was indescribable how much fun it is and how much effort it is to get those things reeled in,” said Grant Rader, a first-timer at this snagging paddlefish. “It’s not easy as we think it is.”
Mefford described the youngest Rader’s trip in more detail.
“From the moment that boy stepped on the boat all he talked about was catching a big fish and a new world record,” he said. “I bet he was never more than about 2 or 3 feet away from me all day, hootin’ and hollering.”
The three generations of Raders were on their way to a 2,000-pound day when they hit the big fish and she brought an end to fishing and start to official weighing procedures, Mefford said. Still, the men boated 1,631 pounds of fish with an 85.7-pound average that day, he said. Grant alone landed three fish over 100 pounds, including the new world record.
“It was so rewarding just hearing his pure enjoyment and saying over and over it was the best day of his life,” Mefford said. “For him to even talk about the world record from the very beginning and then for him to catch a world record that won’t be touched for a long time to come I’m sure. For all that to happen and transpire on one day just blows my mind.”
Mefford has the background on Keystone to know this is a record that won’t soon be broken. It was not his first time to see this fish and he has landed several other world-record spoonies on the lake.
This same fish was aboard his boat with angler Justin Hamlin in February 2019, but that day was a catch-and-release only day by regulation and it and could only be weighed unofficially on the boat and immediately released. The scales on Mefford’s boat put it at 157 pounds.
He said he believes another client hooked the fish since then but that angler lost a long hard fight. This time fate was not in the fish’s favor as it rolled and got its paddle-like rostrum wrapped in the line.
“When they’re hooked toward the back and they get their rostrum wrapped in the front it’s almost like it hog ties them, in a sense. That makes the fight shorter but that can be good because for those really big ones it prevents them from over-exerting too much,” he said.
Beyond its incredible size compared to other fish in the lake—the last world record caught in July 2020 weighed 151.9 pounds—this fish had unique markings that identified it.
“Jeremiah asked as soon as we saw it, ‘does it have a black spot on its right side?’” Jason Radar said. “He knew exactly what fish it was.”
Schooley said the black silver-dollar-sized spot just above the lateral line at the middle of the fish was unique. It also had a distinctive notched lobe in the fleshy part of its gill cover on its left side, he said.
Even though the crew could have legally harvested three fish on the day and this largest sterile fish was not contributing to the population, Mefford said he was heartbroken to see it harvested.
“For the (Wildlife Department), their concern is about the number fish people can catch and the fish that add to the population but for me it’s about these individual trophy fish and putting them back in the lake for other people to catch and new world record experiences,” he said.
Mefford sees a lot of large paddlefish around Keystone on his Garmin LiveScope and he said this fish was a markedly larger than any other.
“This is a record, I think, that won’t be broken again for a long, long time,” he said.
He still sounded dejected Wednesday evening, like a pro quarterback going back over things after running into bad luck that cost him a game-winning play.
He and Schooley have weighed several world-record setters and have a good system for ushering the fish toward a boat ramp by pulling them along with the boat under power of a trolling motor for a quick lift for photos and an official weigh-in.
This time they could not gain access to a boat ramp that was near the catch site, Mefford said. The boat’s trolling motor was nearly played out near day’s end, so they had to take a boat ride, however short, over choppy waters to officially weigh and measure the fish at Schooley’s truck.
“We had her in the water and looking beautiful but then had to go to different boat ramp. That’s what got her,” Mefford said. “A fish that large out of the water, even if it was only about a three-minute ride, it was on rough water and I’m sure she ultimately succumbed to the weight of her own body.”
The fish looked good through the weigh-in and Schooley and Mefford tried to release the fish and watch it on LiveScope as they have others, Schooley said.
“We worked on releasing her for almost an hour but in the end it just looked like she wouldn’t make it,” Schooley said. “We would rather the meat go to good use than release a fish that is nearly dead and it go to waste.”
Harvesting the fish also meant Schooley was able to fully document the fish’s condition and take bone and DNA samples so he will be able to find out its age and learn if its genetics are tied back to early Missouri paddlefish transplants to Keystone Lake. The oldest paddlefish on record for Oklahoma is 30 years old, he said.
Many of the largest Oklahoma paddlefish on record are found to be sterile. Their large size likely is because the fish put all their energy into gaining fat rather than growing eggs that are annually spent.
Mefford is distributing the meat to people who need it and the Radars took the massive head home and will have a European skull mount made to commemorate the catch, Schooley said.
“It was an awesome experience,” Jason Radar said. “We drove all the way home that night and got home about 11 p.m. and we just kept laughing, ‘No Way! We can’t believe this happened!’ It’s absolutely amazing... We are definitely making this an annual trip.”
They also spoke about what they would do with the massive head of the fish until they could take it to a taxidermist in Oklahoma City.
That’s where grandma and grandpa came to the rescue.
“They just went and bought a new freezer to fit the head in,” Grant Rader said. “They decided they’d been wanting to get a new freezer anyway.”
