Still, there remains disagreement over just how much commercial fishing may have depleted paddlefish stocks, as well as over appropriate solutions. Much of the debate over paddlefish centers around concerns that the species will disappear like the Hudson River sturgeon, but there are subtexts - resentment by sport fishermen of their commercial counterparts, contempt for the rich who eat caviar, and envy of commercial fishermen who have suddenly struck it rich themselves.

With the closing of many waterways to fishing, Mr. Hale and others like him have had to become increasingly resourceful to find waters where paddlefish can be legally caught. Instead of fishing practically in their backyards, many now have to travel hundreds of miles to find legal waters. Some in the business feel it is only a matter of time before all commercial fishing is stopped.

''These people could become dinosaurs,'' said Laban Defries, the owner of the Continental Caviar Company, also in Chattanooga. Because of all the new regulations he has decided to channel his energies into farming of paddlefish and other species.

Not Mr. Hale. He is angry at the Government. ''The Federal Government should be saving jobs,'' he said, ''not eliminating them.''

Mr. Hale said he does not understand why American caviar ''is being treated like dope.'' While he agrees that paddlefish should be protected from extinction, he criticizes the lack of a Federal policy that has led to piecemeal state controls, and he says research has failed to show whether the declining supply of paddlefish is caused by commercial fishing or by the construction of dams and water pollution.

Still, as long as it is legal, fishing for paddlefish and processing the roe are the only things he wants to do - the way he has for the last 20 years.

In about 1969 Mr. Hale moved back to Tennessee from Colorado Springs. He drove a truck and sang in a country and western bar. Then one night he and his brother went fishing and came back with a paddlefish. He split open the fish, he recalled, and yelled, ''Hey, this looks like caviar.''