WINNECONNE, WI (WTAQ) – Aside from anglers talking about the fish they may have caught on opening day of the 2015 sturgeon spearing season, the big topic was the frigid cold.
“Oh it’s nasty out there,” Oshkosh’s Bill Merkel, who speared a 48 pound, 65-inch sturgeon on Lake Poygan, told FOX 11. “The wind’s making the loose snow from yesterday blow around. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere out there if you weren’t in a shack.”
Single-digit temperatures were bolstered by wind chills as low as -20 degrees.
Overall, the Wisconsin DNR says 467 sturgeon were harvested on Lake Winnebago and 126 were taken on the Upriver Lakes Saturday. Spearers harvested 93 juvenile females, 245 adult females and 255 males. That adds up to total of 593 fish harvested.
Senior Fisheries Biologist Ryan Koenigs says a clear trend observed at every registration station was that the fish were in poorer condition (leaner) than observed during recent seasons.
Koenigs adds he anticipated that this would be the case given the lack of gizzard shad in the system over the past year. Gizzard shad have become a staple food source for lake sturgeon over the past couple of decades,
How does this year’s opening day harvest compare to past years? Koenigs says the opening day harvest of 467 fish on Lake Winnebago ranks 5th highest since the season moved to the shortened six hour spearing day in 2002.
Koenigs believes the season will continue for “at least” another few days given the amount of females harvested on the day.
(Additional reporting from FOX 11)
