Volunteers Melissa Kjelvik and Lindsey Lesmeister collect the black eggs from a female sturgeon to be used in a fecundity study on the Lake Winnebago sturgeon. - FWS photo

February 9^th, Ashland FRO Fishery Biologist Glenn Miller and students Melissa Kjelvik and Lance Uselman, joined NC graduate and past president of the Student Sub-unit Lindsey Lesmeister to attend the annual meeting held for registration station personnel for Lake Winnebago spear harvest season. 

NC graduate and volunteer Carrie Roberston met the crew in Oshkosh. Meeting at the Asylum Point net and boat building of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is a long standing tradition where Ron Bruch, Fishery Biologist and spear harvest coordinator, goes through the various functions the four-five person crew needs to do while registering the lake sturgeon. 

Any lake sturgeon harvested from Lake Winnebago is required to register the fish at any of the 7 registration stations found along Lake Winnebago’s shoreline.  The 2007 season also found a new twist to the harvest with the 3 upper lakes of the Winnebago chain being opened also. 

Lake Poygan, Winneconne and Butte des Morts had the first (and only known) lottery system this year for fish harvest.  Anyone interested in spearing the three lakes had to apply for a harvest tag in August of 2006 (which over 2,500 spearers did) for a chance to pull one of the 500 harvest tags allowed for the upper lakes season.  

The lucky lottery winners then were notified by October 1, and had to purchase a  harvest tag by October 31.  A total of 481 tags were sold for the 2007 upper lakes season which, along with Lake Winnebago, started on February 10, 2007.  Four registration stations are found on the upper lakes.

Harvest of these magnificent fish are regulated by harvest caps which are set by population estimates conducted annually.  A total Lake Winnebago harvest cap of 556 juvenile females, 556 adult females and 1000 males was set.  This was then broken down further for a cap of 111 juvenile females, 56 adult females and 200 males allocated to the upper lakes season. 

The remaining fish were allocated to the Lake Winnebago harvest.  Harvest is further regulated by setting pre-harvest caps that when upon reaching 90% of any of the three cap totals, juvenile and adult females or males, the season will be closed the following day to harvest, and if 100% of the harvest cap is reached the season is closed that day.  Harvest is only allowed between the hours  6:30 am and 12:30 pm, with all fish speared that day having to be registered by 1:30 pm.    

The Winnebago Cty. B boat landing on Lake Poygan was assigned to Glenn and 2 students along with Lisa Sharkey, WDNR-Oshkosh.  The two other volunteers were assigned to help WDNR personnel at the Winneconne fire hall.  The mandatory registration gather important biological data from the harvested sturgeon. 

Each sturgeon is weighed, measured to the nearest ½ inch, has the first ray of the pectoral fin removed for ageing, sex determination by looking the gonad of the fish and the first ten sturgeon registered have the stomach removed for diet analysis.  Also, any black egg female, a stage of egg development that would have had the sturgeon spawning that spring, had the individual ovaries removed if the spearer did not want them. 

These were then taken back to the WDNR lab for a study to determine the fecundity of the sturgeon.  A subsample of the ovary was collected for weighing of three subsamples per ovary, a count of 10 eggs was made to estimate size of the eggs, and each ovary was weighed.  A large female of 154 pounds had the eggs collected, and the combined weight of both ovaries was 54 pounds!  This information is being compiled to estimate the possible number of juveniles produced by the individual sturgeon.