justnorth posted on February 27, 2007 14:04 :: 1501 Views
Sturgeon spearers were able to enjoy the full 16-days for the
2007 Lake Winnebago season, which closed Sunday Feb. 25, with a system wide preliminary harvest total of 1,347 fish.
The 2007 season will go into the books as “a very nice season, both from the sturgeon population's perspective and from the spearers' perspective,” said Ron Bruch, a Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist and sturgeon specialist.
This was the first year a lottery was in effect to control spearing efforts on the three smaller upstream lakes of Poygan, Butte des Mort, and Winneconne. Spearers had to enter a drawing to be one of the 500 spearers selected to participate in the upriver season. The upriver lakes season closed Feb. 15 with a harvest of 313 sturgeon. The season on Lake Winnebago, which was open to anyone with a Lake Winnebago sturgeon spearing license, closed Sunday with a preliminary harvest of 1,034 fish.
Bruch said spearers also harvested a number of trophy size lake sturgeon weighing more than 100 pounds -- 20 from Lake Winnebago and four from the Upriver Lakes, with the largest being the 158-pound, 74-inch fish taken by Bill Nelson of Larsen.
“This is the highest proportion of trophy fish in the harvest since the late 1950s-early 1960s,” Bruch said. “At this point and until the data are thoroughly analyzed, it appears that the proportion of trophy-sized sturgeon in the population has increased over the last 10 to 15 years. The series of new regulations we implemented designed to increase the number of large fish in the population to stabilize the female spawning stock seems to be paying off.”
The record lake sturgeon speared from Lake Winnebago was a 188-pound fish taken in 2004.
The Winnebago fishery is managed to keep the harvest at or below 5 percent of the total estimated harvestable stock each year, and Bruch said, preliminary numbers indicate that the harvest was kept below that safe level. Fisheries biologists will calculate the final actual harvest rates once all of the data are entered and summarized, specifically the tag return data which are used to estimate annual catch.
Bruch said less than perfect water clarity in some areas of Lake Winnebago likely contributed to lower spearing success rates, allowing the season to last for a full 16 days, during which spearers had lots of time including three full weekends to fish. The season also ran a full 16 days in 2006. In 2004, the season was closed after just two days after spearers exceeded the harvest cap for adult females on opening day.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Ron Bruch - (920) 424-3059
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