Sturgeon Spearing Report - February 19, 2015 (Day 6)
Dear Winnebago System Sturgeon Enthusiasts:
Well I figured we would be close to the 90% trigger on Lake Winnebago after today’s harvest as we were only 63 adult females away from that mark. However, today’s harvest of 52 adult females didn’t quite get us to that mark and the season will continue at least through Friday. We did get closer to the 100% season closure mark and I suspect it will be a close call on whether the season continues into Saturday or not. It will come down to how much effort increases with tomorrow being a Friday and a little better forecasted weather day. As we stand now, a harvest of 94 or more adult females tomorrow would close down the fishery, whereas a harvest of 11-93 adult females would add one more day (Saturday) to the fishery on Lake Winnebago. Either way, I plan to have my harvest numbers out shortly after season closure tomorrow so spearers know whether the season will continue intoSaturday or not. A more detailed breakdown of today’s registration numbers is presented in this PDF.
The largest fish harvested today was Andrew Gorecki’s 114.2 pound, 74.2” sturgeon registered at Payne’s Point (photo). A total of 5 fish >100 pounds were harvested today, 2 were registered at Payne’s Point and 3 were registered at Wendt’s.
Some of life’s greatest gifts are unexpected and that was the case for Eugene Werner today. Today is Eugene’s 68th birthday and he was fortunate enough to harvest a fish today that was registered at Jerry’s Bar. That’s a pretty nice unexpected birthday gift and happy birthday Eugene!
To all you spearers out there, I need to give a big thanks for bringing your fish in to our registration stations early. I have been around to almost all of our stations at some point this season and all of our staff are appreciative of that. It truly does make it easier for us registering your fish and on behalf of all of our DNR staff working stations, we THANK YOU! Good luck spearing tomorrow and I will be sure to get my report out as early as possible tomorrow. It’s hard to predict whether the season will continue into Saturday or not, but I will be sure to deep everyone updated to the extent possible.
Thanks again and throw straight!
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Ryan Koenigs
Senior Fisheries Biologist / Winnebago System Sturgeon Biologist
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
625 E County Rd. Y, Suite 700
Oshkosh, WI 54901
Phone: (920)303-5450
Fax: (920)424-4404
Ryan.koenigs@wisconsin.gov