2/27/22 Sturgeon Season Day 15
27 February 2022 Sports
Day 15 of the sturgeon spearing season was successful for many spearers. Today, spearers harvested 71 fish on Lake Winnebago (9 juvenile females, 36 adult females and 26 males). With it being a sunny Saturday, more people were out on the ice than during the week, and the sunlight helped increase visibility in the water.
Lake Winnebago season totals have increased to 147 juvenile females, 501 adult females and 438 males for a total of 1,086 fish.
Tomorrow is the last day of the 2022 season. With more sunshine in the forecast, we expect a similar harvest. Good luck to everyone heading out for one last attempt!
View the full details in today’s harvest report here.
Christina Stolle’s 131.8 pound, 76.2 inch F2 female (pictured) was the biggest fish harvested on Lake Winnebago today. She registered it at the Stockbridge Harbor registration station. Four fish harvested today weighed 100 pounds or more, bringing the season total on the system to 84 fish weighing over 100 pounds.
There have been a number of large fish harvested this season. The current number of fish weighing 100 pounds or more is up around 6%, despite the lack of a measurable gizzard shad year class since 2016. In recent years, the percentage of 100+ pound fish in the harvest has been around 4%, and lower than the 6-9% during the large shad year classes of the early 2010s.
This season, we are on track to see a percentage that closely aligns with gizzard shad years. This shows that plenty of food is available for lake sturgeon in the Winnebago System, and that fish can grow to be quite large. In fact, the 174.3 pound and 171.1 pound fish harvested earlier this season have made their way into the “Heavy Hitters” club, making the list of the top 15 heaviest fish harvested of all time.
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