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Back on June 17, 2001, Ed and Cleatis Hook were fishing for skipjack herring in the Cumberland River below Barkley Dam. Ed hooked a large paddlefish and managed to boat it. The 71-inch long fish had a jaw tag. Catching a tagged fish is unusual in its own right, but this paddlefish that now resided in the Lake Barkley tailwater was originally tagged over 1,000 miles away in South Dakota. The fish came from Lake Francis Case on the Missouri River and had the tag attached to its jaw in May of 1995. The precocious paddlefish traversed two reservoir dams and entered the unimpounded portion of the Missouri River. The fish then swam 880 miles along the Iowa and Nebraska border and through Missouri to the Mississippi River. At St. Louis, the fish then turned south toward New Orleans and swam 212 miles to the mouth of the Ohio River after negotiating Lock and Dam 27 downstream of St. Louis on the Mississippi. At Cairo, Illinois, the paddlefish took a left and entered the Ohio River and swam 62 miles to the mouth of the Cumberland. The fish may have had to swim over the two wicked dams on the Ohio, Lock and Dam 52 and 53, depending on the water level. Another 29 miles of swimming brought the paddlefish to the Barkley Dam and its meeting with Ed's hook. This fish was determined. It swam 1,184 miles through four river systems and crossed five dams to reach the Cumberland River since being tagged six years ago. Lt. Bob Fralick, a Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources boating and wildlife law enforcement officer in District 1, verified the tag and paddlefish. The Jackson Times