Warning: This story contains a graphic image.
A group of fishermen rescued a fish from a surprising and excruciatingly painful situation during a recent outing in Oklahoma.
Cody Shirk, owner of Chasin’ Tail Guide Service, had taken some regular clients to catch paddlefish on Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees on Oct. 6, when they encountered the long-suffering fish, he told McClatchy News in a phone interview.
Paddlefish make up the bulk of Shirk’s business, he says, and for good reason. The large, prehistoric fish is coveted by sportsmen, due in part to their unique appearance — and because they’re good eating.
But more than anything, it’s because they’re fighters.
“Without going into the ocean, without hooking into a shark or a marlin or something, it’s probably one of the best fighting fish you can find,” Shirk said. In his experience, about nine out of every 10 paddlefish hooked manage to escape.
The group headed out onto the water at about 7 a.m., Shirk said, and it wasn’t long before they started snagging paddlefish. One fish in particular caught their attention, and not for its size.
Rather, it was because there was something odd about the way it looked, like it had a large and unusual birthmark on its bill.
As Shirk’s client pulled the paddlefish closer, landing it into the boat after a 10-minute struggle, it became clear it wasn’t a birthmark.
There was a hook caught on the fish, and strong fishing line wrapped tightly around the bill — so tight it was tearing through the flesh.
“It had basically just been sawing its way through its snout,” Shirk said. The wounds were bright red and fresh toward the center of the bill, but dark and deformed on the outside, suggesting the line had been cutting away at the fish for a very long time.
Judging by the state of the injuries and the rust and wear on the gear, Shirk thinks the paddlefish had been living like that for at least 6 months or possibly over a year.
In the years he’s been offering his services on Grand Lake, he said he’s never come across a paddlefish in a predicament as severe as this.
“I could barely get my knife underneath (the line) to cut because it was so tight,” Shirk said.
He started by pulling out the hook, then carefully cut away on the line until it all fell loose.
“I can only imagine how good it felt when we cut it off of him! This fish was one of the few that was probably happy to be caught by us,” Shirk wrote in a Facebook post, sharing a photo of the paddlefish.
It was a “good-sized” paddlefish, weighing in around 45 pounds, Shirk said. But the group decided to release it back into Grand Lake. That seemed fair.
“It had been through enough,” he said.
Despite the damage done, the paddlefish seemed to be in good health, Shirk said, adding that “it took off like nothing ever happened.”
Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees is a roughly 80-mile drive northeast from Tulsa.
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