Day 12 of the Sturgeon Spearing season Daily Highlights

Daily Highlights

Today was the 12th day of the 2020 lake sturgeon spear fishery on the Winnebago System, meaning that the season is now 3/4 of the way over. There were 29 fish harvested today with 23 coming from Lake Winnebago and 6 from the Upriver Lakes.  The registration station at Jim and Linda’s once again paced the way today with 8 fish registered, followed by Stockbridge Harbor with 6, Payne’s Point with 5, and Wendt’s with 4. Of the 6 fish registered on the Upriver Lakes today, 5 were registered at Critter’s. A detailed breakdown of today’s harvest is available through the following link:

Day 12 Harvest Report.pdf

The largest fish of the day was 77.6 pounds, 65.5 inches and registered at Payne’s Point by Tyler Auclair. Dennis Korn registered his 76.6 pound, 66.0 inch lake sturgeon at Critter’s, and Dennis’s fish was the largest sturgeon taken from the Upriver Lakes today.  I’ve included photos of both spearers and their fish in today’s report.

Today’s Vignette: “What are sturgeon feeding on this season”

Our DNR fisheries crew typically collects stomachs from 80-100 lake sturgeon harvested during each season’s spear fishery to assess foraging patterns. Stomachs are collected from fish harvested from both the Lake Winnebago and Upriver Lakes fisheries and data are analyzed independently by waterbody. Today’s vignette describes the results from this season’s diet assessment. For the most part, the results jived with what we would have anticipated coming into the season, but there was one big surprise. You’ll have to read the full report to find out what that surprise was!

Forage trends_2020 season.pdf