From the WI DNR Website @ Emergency rule could limit Lake Winnebago sturgeon spearing season to one day
Season will close if harvest cap reached on opening day
MADISON – The state Natural Resources Board has approved an emergency rule that authorizes state fisheries officials to close the 2005 lake sturgeon spearing season on Lake Winnebago after one day if spearers reach the harvest cap for juvenile females, adult females or males.
The 2004 spearing season on the Winnebago system Upriver Lakes, a separate season on lakes Butte des Mort, Winneconne and Poygan, is already due to close after one day.
The board also instructed Department of Natural Resources fisheries officials to work with a local advisory group and other interested parties to devise a better, long-term solution to protect populations of the slow growing, late maturing fish while allowing a longer season.
“Board members told us this is only a stop-gap measure and that we need to work with the Lake Winnebago Citizens Advisory Committee and others to look at other long-term options to limit the harvest and extend the season, including looking at refuges and a lottery,” said Mike Staggs, Department of Natural Resources fisheries management and habitat protection director.
The statutory season structure allows the season to run 16 consecutive days or until spearers reach 80 percent of any one of the harvest caps set for juvenile females, adult females or males. Upon reaching that trigger, the season would close at the end of spearing hours the next day.
In 2004, spearers harvested a record 1,303 lake sturgeon on opening day of the Lake Winnebago spearing season, with the 509 adult females speared surpassing the total allowable harvest for adult females of 425. But because of the season rules, spearing continued for a second day before closing, allowing an additional 175 adult females to be harvested. All told, 259 more adult females were speared than the total harvest cap.
Overharvest of adult females is a concern because they’re the backbone of the lake sturgeon population and because they don’t spawn until they are 20 to 25 years old, and then only every three to five years, according to Ron Bruch, a Department of Natural Resources senior sturgeon biologist and fisheries supervisor based in Oshkosh.
The change is the latest regulatory effort that sturgeon biologists and the citizens’ group that advises DNR on Lake Winnebago lake sturgeon management have sought to try to reduce harvest pressure on adult females. Improved water clarity and a growing number of spearers has increased the harvest of adult females, which spearers tend to target because they’re generally larger than males, Bruch says.
Under the emergency rule passed today by the board, the 2005 Lake Winnebago lake sturgeon spearing season will open Feb. 12 at 6:30 a.m. and run until the harvest cap is reached or a maximum of 16 consecutive days, with the possibility of the season closing after one day if one of the harvest caps is reached.
The spearing season on the Upriver Lakes will be a one-day season only on those waters and will open at 6:30 a.m. Feb. 12 and close at 12:30 p.m. that same day.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Mike Staggs (608) 267-0796
