LAKE WINNEBAGO, WI (WTAQ) – Sturgeon spearers are finding success in the seasons opening week, but biologists are noticing that the fish aren’t tipping back the scale as much as they expected.
Jon Eiden from Appleton was elated when he speared a massive sturgeon on opening day.
“I was pretty confident it was over 100 pounds, and in the back of my mind, I thought it would really be neat if this was over 130, but never in a million years, thought it would be over 80 inches, and 170 pounds,” says Eiden.
The sturgeon ended up being the longest-ever harvested and the 12th heaviest on record, coming in at 85.5 inches and 171 pounds.
As strange as it sounds, experts were disappointed with the weigh-in and say that it had the potential to be much heavier.
“To see that fish come in at 171, it was a little disappointing, because that’s one of the fish we kind of been touting as potential record-breaking,” says Ryan Koenigs, DNR Sturgeon Biologist. “With that length of fish, that body has the potential to carry 220, 230, possibly 240 pounds.”
According to him, this record-breaking catch was just the first example of many sturgeon this year that left a little weight to be desired.
“Just looking at the fish coming in the station, I think they’re in below average condition, which isn’t surprising, because we’ve gone through now two consecutive years without gizzard shad,” says Koenigs. “This year, we did have a resurgence of the amount of Chironomid lake fly larvae in the lake though.”
This phenomenon is starting to look like a trend, after many fish were on the lean side last year too.
An 84.5-inch fish, which was caught in 2018, weighed 143.7 pounds and that compares to the season champion, which measured 75.6 inches, and tipped the scale at 155.6 pounds.
For biologists, they’ll have to turn to the sturgeons stomach to get a better idea of what they’re consuming and how that relates to this trend.
“We’ll have a lot better handle on exactly what the fish are consuming, and how that’s translating to their overall condition, relative to seasons past,” says Koenigs.
In 2010, the state record sturgeon was speared, which was 84-point-2 inches long, and weighed 212-point-2 pounds.
