Today marks the conclusion of the 5th day of the 2017 sturgeon
spear fishery on the Winnebago System. There were 32 fish harvested from
Lake Winnebago and 18 from the Upriver Lakes today. We are currently at
67% of both the adult female and male harvest caps and would need a harvest of
either 22 adult females or 54 males to reach the 90% trigger that would close
the fishery the next day. With the decrease in harvest each day, I am
expecting the Upriver Lakes fishery to go well into this weekend.
Five more fish 100 pounds or larger were harvested today, all of which were
from the Upriver Lakes. After the first 5 days of the fishery 7.9% of the Lake
Winnebago harvest have been fish 100 pounds or larger, compared to 2.7% of the
Upriver Lakes harvest. The largest fish harvested today was registered at
Quinney by Daniel Reindl of New London (118.2 pounds and 75.2”). I don’t
have a photo of Daniel’s fish, but we did get a picture of Jonathan Schneider’s
115.2 pound, 68.5” sturgeon that was registered at Payne’s Point (photo
attached).
Sturgeon Vignette – “The 1957 Sturgeon
Spearing Season”
I often talk about the cultural and social aspects of sturgeon spearing.
Modern sturgeon spearing seasons date back to the winter of 1931-1932, with
much of the equipment used being handmade and handed down through the
generations. This spearing season I plan to chronicle some of the past sturgeon
spearing seasons, at least one’s that I have records from. I will start
with years ending in “7” and move on to the next digit with each passing
season. The archives of past sturgeon spearing seasons are pretty variable
in content, but today I want to take a few minutes to describe the 1957 season
(60 years ago).
I have attached a few documents from the folder from 1957 (season synopsis,
news release prior to season, sturgeon registration guide that was provided to
the registration stations, and the length frequency from the 1957 harvest).
It’s amazing reading through these documents how little some of the regulations
regarding sturgeon spearing have changed in 60+ years. Of course the
harvest cap system, shortened spearing days, URL lottery, and many other
regulations have been more recently implemented but some of the basic
requirements have not changed.
It’s interesting to read through these historic documents and realize that
sturgeon biologists have always collected a tremendous amount of data from
harvested fish. For example, the registration guide talks about collection of
fin bones for age estimation. To this date, we continue to collect fin
bones for age estimation. However, this season we are making a big push
to collect sturgeon heads for an age and growth study. That’s the nature
of science though, we are always looking for improvements in the way we do
things and that will never change.
It’s also interesting to read the information about the $10 reward for
tagged sturgeon. Through time there have been a number of reward programs for
not only sturgeon tag returns, but also other species. At one point,
breweries were even involved in the program to provide added incentive to
anglers. I hope you enjoy the information about the 1957 season.
I enjoyed reading through the documents and learning more about the 1957
season. Further, I look forward to chronicling other past spearing
seasons as the 2017 continues on!
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Ryan Koenigs
Senior Fisheries Biologist / Winnebago
System Sturgeon Biologist
Wisconsin Department of Natural
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