Monday, February 19, 2018

DNR REPORT FROM 1988 STURGEON SPEARING SEASON


The 1988 Sturgeon Spearing Season:

Today’s report highlights the 1988 sturgeon spearing season on Lake Winnebago.  There were 468 fish harvested during the 18 day season, with the largest fish (115 pounds; 77.0”) being registered at Lakeview in Pipe by Edwina Freund. I have included four documents related to the 1988 season:
  1. Season synopsis showing the season length, regulations affecting the season, shanty count, license sales, and harvest information.
  2. Instructions that were distributed to stations for registering fish.  Keep in mind that during the 1988 season, sturgeon were registered at local businesses, not at DNR operated registration stations.
  3. News article from the Oshkosh Northwestern (author Pat Durkin) describing the average weight of sturgeon speared and foraging conditions.
  4. Water clarity readings collected a few days prior to the season starting. 

I was particularly interested to read the instructions for registration stations and how they compare to current practices.  For starters, we still collect a lot of the same information including spearer demographic information, fish length/weight, and attach a registration tag to the fish.  We also still look for DNR tags, both internal and external, on all tagged fish.  We still do see some of the metal tags on the dorsal fin of fish harvested, but most of the tagged fish in the system are now marked with internal PIT tags.  In 1988 they also looked for radio tags and offered an award for retrieving them.  We have not used radio tags for a few years, but we now have hundreds of fish marked with internal acoustic tags to monitor movement of fish throughout the system.  In addition to all of the data collected in 1988, we also collected information related to diet, age/growth, and sex/maturity for fish harvested during the 2018 season. 

I hope you enjoyed the flashback to 1988!

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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
dnr.wi.gov     


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