OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ) – With this year’s sturgeon spearing season in the rearview mirror, officials say the numbers point towards a mostly underwhelming harvest.
During the 16-day campaign, spearers took 479 fish on Lake Winnebago.
In other words, a 3.9 percent success rate.
Statistically, the harvest ranks only 52nd best out of 79 seasons.
So, what went wrong?
“Overall, the majority of Lake Winnebago, the water was pretty dirty,” says Ryan Koenigs, DNR Sturgeon Biologist. “On average we had nine and a half feet of visibility.”
This came as a disappointment after many officials were expecting clarity to be well into the double digits following early reports.
“Coming into the season, there certainly were some areas where there was clear water the closer you got to the north shore of Lake Winnebago,” explains Koenigs. “We had some spearers saying they could see fifteen to seventeen feet down.”
The conditions of the fish harvested varied throughout the lake, as a number of sturgeon were found to be feeding on lake fly Larvae, which are also known as red worms.
While no gizzard shad was found by biologists in any of the fish stomachs sampled on Lake Winnebago.
“We knew that there weren’t that many shad out there. And again, with the abundance of red worms, we were anticipating the sturgeon are going to be keying in on those,” says Koenigs.
The season wasn’t totally void of bright spots, though.
On opening day Jon Eiden speared a 171 pound, 85.5-inch sturgeon on Lake Winnebago.
According to Koenigs, they had their eye on that fish for quite some time.
“We’ve handled that fish two times in prior spawning assessments in 2004 and 2012,” he says. “This was the fish that the DNR, we’ve been talking about a lot, kind of showing or demonstrating the caliber of fish that are out there in the Winnebago System.”
This is the fourth consecutive season on Lake Winnebago that has lasted the full 16 days, according to officials.
