The 1998 Sturgeon Spearing Season
The 1998 was a truly unique season. For starters, there was great concern about ice conditions leading up to the season. From some of the other newspaper articles that I’ve read, it appears there was even outside pressure to cancel the season. The 2018 spearing season marks the 11th season that I have worked for the DNR in Oshkosh (6th as the sturgeon biologist) and I have fielded questions about potential season cancelations as well. However, as I stated then and Ron Bruch (biologist at the time) stated in 1998, the sturgeon spearing will occur and it’s the discretion of the individual spear to decide whether they will or not take part.
The 1998 season brought extremely favorable water clarity conditions, with visibility being 18’. Thus spearers were able to see bottom throughout most of the lake. Ron Bruch is quoted in one of the attached articles as saying that the water is so clear “you can see a peanut in 20’ of water.” The clear water gave spearers a little extra incentive to find areas of better ice. Water clarity did translate to spearing success as the opening weekend harvest was one of, if not the, largest on record.
From a regulation standpoint, the 1998 season marked the last spearing season prior to implementation of a harvest cap system. Water clarity was very good throughout most of the 1990s which resulted in high harvest rates, particularly on adult females. Thus the harvest cap system was implemented in advance of the 1999 season to maintain harvest at or below a sustainable level. At that time a spearing license was $10 and the minimum spearing age was 14 years of age.
I have included four documents related to the 1998 sturgeon spearing season:
- 1998 pre-season release distributed by Ron Bruch (sturgeon biologist at the time)
- News article from the Appleton Post-Crescent (Ed Culhane author) describing how the season will proceed as scheduled
- News article from the Fond du Lac reporter explaining how the season opener was one of the best ever
- Synopsis of the 1998 season
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Ryan Koenigs
Senior Fisheries Biologist / Winnebago System Sturgeon Biologist
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Phone: (920)303-5450
Fax: (920)424-4404