Fencerows: Arctic Sturgeon Spearing Opener
John Luthens
The thermometer bobbed undecidedly near the zero mark, but being that every flag was standing at full attention in a northwest windstorm, those few degrees, one way or another, blended meaninglessly into a whiteout.
Pawing through every cold-weather layer I owned, I dimly recalled it was Valentines Day – a tailor-made day for curling up in bed and munching chocolates out of a heart-shaped box. It also happened to be the Lake Winnebago sturgeon spearing opener. Drop-tined spears were poised in dark shacks. And for me, along with lure of ancient fish pulled to the frozen surface, those spears outgun Cupid’s arrows every time.
Weathering the wind on opening morning.
I drove through Fond du Lac as it was taking the brunt of the blowing snow that gathered force over the length of the lake. Trucks and sturgeon shacks alike disappeared in a white wind. It looked like a glacial plain in the vast Arctic Circle instead of an inland lake.
There was no sound save the howling wind. I dropped a glove while taking pictures and it whisked away and gone before I could give fair chase. I somehow managed to gallop faster than a pony with blue fingers in tow when I headed back to the truck to warm up.
Senior Chemistry-Biology major at Ripon College, Raymond Allen, takes genetic tissue samples from a 105 pound lake sturgeon.
It was near 10 a.m. when I made my way to the Wendt’s Landing registration station on the west side of the lake. The weather wasn’t any warmer, but the familiar string of sturgeon and cheerful onlookers gave the air a warmer feel.
I had the privilege of passing the time between wind gusts and sturgeon with a pair of scientists from Ripon College. Assistant Professor of Biology, Barbara Sisson and senior Chemistry-Biology student Raymond Allen were braving the arctic temperatures to take tissue samples of registered sturgeon.
Their research involves the similarity in genetics of cartilage formation between lake sturgeon and other fish species. I can’t say I fully understand it, which is the heart of the matter on why I write about such matters, instead of possessing the intellect to actually do them. But I know dedicated science when I see it in action, and I know good people when I see them. Even when their sampling knife snapped in two because of the cold, they never missed a beat.
A sturgeon weighs in at the DNR registration station at Wendt’s Landing.
One could argue that every year is the same; prehistoric fish decoyed beneath cut holes and wrestled onto the ice, and every year the square-shaped DNR shack with the rope-pulley scale and measuring board out front where age and sex of the fish is determined. That would like be saying that every deer opener is the same. Seasons blend together with old friends, new friends and tradition. But every opener is new and fresh and full of promise.
Myself, after freezing up two cameras, a cell phone, and half my fingers, and even after missing out on a breakfast of crunchy candy hearts; I’m already looking forward to next year.