Opening day for Winnebago System sturgeon spearing = SUCCESS!
Season opens with a big day!
Well conditions were ripe for a big opening day of the 2014 sturgeon spearing season, and that is just what it was a BIG DAY! In fact, our crews at Wendt’s on the Lake just finished registering fish and were finally able to call in their numbers at 4:40 PM. The attached PDF document shows the harvest of sturgeon from opening day and where the fish were registered. As the harvest table shows, the South end of Lake Winnebago was the hot spot, with 211 fish being registered at Wendt’s and 121 fish being registered at Jim and Linda’s Super Club in Pipe. Spearers were able to harvest just over 42% of the Lake Winnebago adult female harvest cap today, meaning that the season will continue through Sunday and likely into the early part of next week.
As for the Upriver Lakes, the season goes on but likely not for much longer. There was a total of 242 fish harvested on the Upriver Lakes on opening day, which means that roughly half of the license holders for the lottery fishery registered a fish already. As with the Winnebago fishery, the season continues on the Upriver Lakes. As of the day’s end, spearers were able to harvest 69% of the adult female harvest cap and 65% of the male harvest cap for the Upriver Lakes. We are 18 adult females away from the 90% trigger and 26 fish from the 100% trigger, meaning that the season will end if 26 adult females are harvested on Sunday. - Ryan Koenigs, Winnebago sturgeon biologist
What's in an opening day?
I wanted to provide some background information on just how this season’s opening day compared to opening day in past seasons with similar regulations. Most notably the 6-hour season was initiated in 2002, so I compared this year’s opening day shanty count, water clarity and harvest to opening days on Lake Winnebago and the Upriver Lakes since 2002 [PDF]. This year’s opening day harvest of 636 fish is the 2nd highest during this time series. The 242 fish harvested today on the Upriver Lakes is also the highest opening day harvest on the Upriver Lakes since the lottery fishery was implemented in advance of the 2007 season. Any way you look at it, today was truly a successful day for sturgeon spearers on the Winnebago System.