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Winnebago sturgeon spearing: A 212-pound record -
Wow guys check this out!:clapping::clapping:
Big fish signal that Winnebago sturgeon management has paid off
Attachment 10024
Big fish signal that Winnebago sturgeon management has paid off
BY STEVE WIDEMAN • Gannett Wisconsin Media • February 21, 2010
When Ron Grishaber of Appleton dropped his sturgeon spear into a 212-pound behemoth on Feb. 13 and brought the fish onto the ice of Lake Winnebago, the news sent shock waves of success through the state’s decades-old lake sturgeon management program.
Grishaber’s record-setting fish, the first 200-plus pound sturgeon officially registered in the annual sturgeon hunt, was one of 82 fish speared during the 2010 sturgeon hunt weighing in at 100 or more pounds, including a record-setting male sturgeon tipping the scales at 116.8 pounds.
The season, which ended Thursday after six days of spearing, marks the culmination of decades of nurturing the sturgeon after excessive and illegal harvesting, state Department of Natural Resourceshttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif sturgeion biologist Ron Bruch said.
“This just didn’t happen overnight,” Bruch said. “There have been several generations of fisheries biologists and members of the public interested in the sturgeon. We’ve finally been able to get to the point of sturgeon management working like a fine-tooled instrument.”
The season’s haul not only marked the success of management of the state’s sturgeon population, but the beginning of a never-ending quest to maintain the lake sturgeon in Wisconsin and its environment, Bruch said.
Growing the population of big fish “was one of our sturgeon management goals in the 1990s,” Bruch said.
“I can remember saying in meetings back then that we want to grow more gray ladies,” Bruch said in reference to adult female sturgeon. Females grow much bigger than their male counterparts.
“The key is making sure we don’t over-exploit the adult females or any portion of the sturgeon population,” Bruch said.
The DNR estimates there are 60,000 sturgeon in the Lake Winnebago system between the ages of 1 and 100. Of those 14,300 are thought to be adult females, Bruch said.
Harvest quotas for adult female sturgeon triggered Thursday’s closure of the spearing season 10 days early on Lake Winnebago and the upriver lakes of Poygan, Winneconne and Butte des Morts.
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Bruch said sturgeon hunters speared 801 adult females throughout the system, 61 over the DNR’s harvest limit of 740 adult females.
In addition, sturgeon hunters harvested 270 juvenile females and 749 males for a total of 1,820 fish.
The DNR’s annual goal is not to exceed 5 percent of any of the harvested categories, Bruch said.
Andy Stumpf of Sherwood was one of the last sturgeon hunters to spear and register a fish.
Stumpf speared a 54-inch, 46-pound, 6-ounce sturgeon about 12:15 p.m. Thursday, 15 minutes before the official close of the season, south of Fire Lane 8 in the Town of Harrison.
“I was getting ready to shut down for the season. I pulled up one of two decoys I had in the water and saw the fish near the bottom,” Stumpf said.
Stumpf said his sturgeon hovered near a 6-inch, tan decoy his late father, Harvey Stumpf, gave him.
“I’d like to think my father was watching and had something to do with me spearing the fish,” said Stumpf, who registered his fish at Waverly Beach.
Passing on sturgeon equipment and secrets to future generations is something Bruch hopes to see if the big fish continue their century-old recovery from over-fishing and illegal harvests.
Bruch said the DNR has tracked the harvest from Lake Winnebago of sturgeon 100 pounds and larger since mandatory registration began in 1955.
A hole created in the sturgeon population due to excessive illegal hunting and poaching in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s and large legal harvests in the 1950s “has finally passed,” he explained.
Ironically, Bruch said, non-point runoff pollution, primarily from bad farming practices of the past, clouded spearing waters in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, allowing the sturgeon population to flourish.
Bruch said he was excited at the news of Grishaber’s historic fish.
“I was surprised by how much it smashed the previous record of a 188-pound fish (speared in 2004 by Dave Piechowski of Redgranite),” Bruch said.
Bruch said Grishaber’s fish recently completed storing enough fat to begin producing eggs and yolks leading up to spawning in 2012 when it would have likely weighed 240 or 250 pounds.
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Over-harvesting is not the only threat facing lake sturgeon in the future, Bruch said.
“There is the threat of invasive species. If the Asian carp and other invasive species already in Green Bay get up here it would greatly change the environment,” Bruch said.
Bruch has become known as the state’s sturgeon guru by sturgeon aficionados and has worked most of his professional career in sturgeon management.
“I definitely feel a kindred spirit with the fish,” Bruch said. “It is like working with living history. I love history and to be able to deal with fish that live so long and have lived through so many different things is very hard to describe.
“I have a great respect for the animal, but at the same time very much enjoy people recreating with it.”
Bruch was one of the 10,000-plus sturgeon hunters to take to the ice this year and drew a permit in a lottery to spear sturgeon on the upriver lakes of Poygan and Butte des Morts.
“I speared for three days and missed one,” said Bruch, who speared in two previous seasons. “I never got that close to spearing a sturgeon.
“I’m smitten by it now. I’ve really got the bug. Once you see a sturgeon in the hole you are not going to stop trying until you spear one.”
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