A dozen boats shot out of the launch together in the early light like a school of orcas on the hunt. They headed north, upstream, to a quiet backwater of the Mississippi River, where they began setting thousands of feet of net. It was early fall, and cold.
Tim Ohmann, a fisheries specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, took a sniff of one of his gloves. "I still have some of that paddlefish smell on me," Ohmann said. "We're going to see some paddlefish today."
Spend enough time netting fish on the Mississippi and you can start telling species apart by their odor alone. Muskies, sturgeon, catfish and carp all have their own subtle differences, Ohmann said.
"Oh yeah," agreed Kayla Stampfle, the DNR's invasive carp field lead who was in the boat with him. "Walleye and walleye fingerlings even smell different."
The worst-smelling fish in the Midwest is a dead shad, Ohmann said. Paddlefish are among the best, emitting more of a pleasant aroma, he said.
Stampfle and Ohmann were on the river near La Crosse, Wis., that day to catch invasive silver and bighead carp. But their operation — conducted every year with a handful of other state and federal agencies — offered a rare chance to pull up some of Minnesota's native paddlefish. In this state, the ancient, gentle river giants now exist mainly around the Mississippi.