UNDATED (WTAQ) – It’s a traditional rite of spring in Wisconsin — and it got underway quickly.
Warming water temperatures have prompted sturgeon to begin spawning on the Wolf, Little Wolf and upper Fox rivers.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says crews collected 8 fish from the Fox River at Princeton and five more from the river in Berlin on Sunday. Of those fish, crews implanted 10-year tracking devices into 12 sturgeon.
So far Monday, DNR crews were out on the Wolf River at the Sturgeon Trail on Highway X in New London. DNR fisheries biologist Ryan Koenigs says he’s received reports of spawning activity in the upper Fox River at Princeton and in the Little Wolf River in Manawa.
Koenigs predicts there will be fish in New London on Monday and Tuesday. They may also surface on the Wolf River in Shiocton on Monday, but definitely on Tuesday, Koenigs says. Spawning at the Shawano Dam on the Wolf River will likely be visible later this week.
“All the fish we measure, we determine whether they’re males or females, then we’ll check to see if they’ve been tagged in the past,” Koenigs said. “What that tagging information allows us to do is to estimate how many fish are out there in the population and those estimates are used to set harvest caps for subsequent spear fisheries.”
The yearly tradition has grown in popularity, with many Wisconsinites flocking to spawning sites to see all the action.
“It’s unlike any other experience that you can see anywhere in the world for this number of fish to be that acceptable to viewers on the shore,” explains Koenigs. “To the communities of mostly New London, Shiocton and Shawano, where public viewing sites are, the periods of spawning contributes an estimated $350,000 to the local economy. That number is 10 years old, so I would imagine that has more than doubled since.”
