Sturgeon spawning run update
Dear Winnebago System Sturgeon Enthusiasts:
The lake sturgeon spawning run on the Winnebago System continues to move fast. In fact, we had two crews today tagging fish below the Shawano Paper Mill Dam today. Typically we aren’t seeing spawning fish until later in the spawning run, but this is the 2nd year in a row that fish have been at Shawano on the 3rd day of the run on the Wolf River. Between the two crews today we handled 370 sturgeon below the Shawano Dam. We likely would have handled more fish had we not been collecting eggs and sperm for multiple lake sturgeon restoration programs. We also had a crew handle 225 fish at two sites on private property in Leem today.
For tomorrow (Thursday), there will still be fish spawning below the Shawano Paper Mill Dam. Our crews will be handling fish there in the morning, but I do recommend coming early if you want to observe us tagging fish. There may be fish spawning at sites further down river in New London and Shiocton, but we are definitely post peak spawning at these locations.
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