It had been the longest and snowiest winter in memory, but the riverbank finally offered up a warm patch of grass and dry pebbles.
Patrick Edwards fished alone April 2 on a stretch of the Wind River he’s not willing to pinpoint for other would-be champion fishermen. It was a little breezy and about 40 degrees, but cloudless.
Not yet to its noisy brown runoff phase, the river slipped by clear and silent. Edwards could see the rocks on the river bottom near his feet, but he couldn’t see any fish darting past his hook out in the middle. He relaxed.
And Something bit.
The fish fought a little, but not with the fury of a trout. There was no doubt as it surfaced that this was a suckerfish, but beyond that Edwards was stumped.
Edwards holds the record for catching the heaviest white suckerfish in Wyoming, a 5-pound, 6.45-ouncer snagged in 2020, but this wasn’t a white sucker.
“I wasn’t 100% sure what species it was,” Edwards told Cowboy State Daily. “I ended up taking it home, looking it up and realizing that it was a different species like I thought – and also a pretty big one.”
After some research, Edwards suspected that it was a longnose suckerfish. It had a giant, fleshy mouth and a longer snout. Black chain-link scales hugged its sides and belly.
“According to my scale at home and my tape, I had a new state record,” he said. “So it was kind of exciting.”
Slime On The Scale
Edwards and the fish traveled from his home in Fremont County’s ranchlands to the post office in Riverton.
The postal workers remembered him from the last time he hauled a fish through their doors.
“They were like, ‘Oh, you got another one, huh?’” Edwards recalled.
They let Edwards “slime up” their certified scale, then they notarized his documentation of the fish’s official weight: 3 pounds, 15.6 ounces.
Edwards’ next stop was the Wyoming Game and Fish office in Lander, where regional fishery supervisor Joe Deromedi confirmed the catch was indeed a longnose suckerfish. And a state record.
It blew the old record of 2 pounds, 11.3 ounces out of the water.
Edwards attributes the difference to his cold-weather fishing.
The prior record-setter Christopher Bobo caught his longnose May 1, 2022, in the North Platte River near Casper. By that date, depending on the water temperatures, it may already have spawned.
Edwards’ fish hadn’t.
Dad Break
His four children were jealous.
The day he caught the fish had been a rare time alone for Edwards, who has a busy job, a dozen chickens and four kids ranging in age from 8 to 13. He often takes his children fishing with him, or guests participating in his fishing podcast.
But on that day the kids were hanging out with friends and Edwards went to the river alone.
“Now they were like, ‘Dad, we gotta beat your state record. You’ve gotta take us down there so we can beat you,’” said Edwards with a laugh. “And I’d be happy if they did.”
Suckers especially are a great catch for kids because, Edwards said, children can just dangle a worm at the river bottom and wait.
“I love how competitive they are,” he said, adding that his 11-year-old daughter has caught five species so far.
Yes, You Can Eat Them
The family ate Edwards’ champion catch.
Edwards cooked the fish on his smoker, he said. Suckers have a higher oil content than walleye and a unique flavor.
Some people are “put off” by the fish’s jutting pink cylinder of a mouth, he said. But more than anything, you’ve got to watch out for the bones.
“You really have to pay attention if you’re going to eat a sucker because there’s a lot of bones in them, and you don’t want to choke on them,” said Edwards.
One way around this is to pickle them or run the meat through a food processer. Another way is to be on high alert when eating suckerfish.
“It’s much easier to eat a walleye,” said Edwards.
They’re Out There
Deromedi told Cowboy State Daily that longnose suckerfish are fairly common in Wyoming but are usually found higher upstream. They stick to cooler waters and run a little leaner than the white suckers – which explains the 2-pound difference between Edwards’ champion white and his longnose.
“It’s really cool to see these records show up, especially in recent years,” said Deromedi. “That potential is out there for some of these fish species.”
Edwards said it’s been fun for him to catch the record-setters, not just to rile up his kids’ excitement, but to lend content to his podcast, RadCast Outdoors, and to highlight all the creatures in Wyoming’s waters.
There are only two Wyoming species he has not yet caught: the shovelnose sturgeon and the stone catfish.
“Hopefully this year I’ll catch (those),” he said. “Then I’ll have really done something this year.”
Photo: Patrick Edwards has been recognized for his state record longnose suckerfish, left, a fish that features distinctive black diamond scales, even if they are pretty slimy. (Courtesy Patrick Edwards)
