Jason Arndt, jarndt@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Jason Arndt Sturgeon spawning is expected to peak this weekend in the Wolf River near the Shawano dam. Warm weather is creating a shorter than usual spawning season for the prehistoric fish.
Leader Photo by Jason Arndt Beau Miller, of Shawano, holds his daughter Meryl and supervises his other daughter, Miles, at Sturgeon Park on Friday as they and others view the annual sturgeon run.
If you want to watch the sturgeon spawning at the Shawano dam, the state Department of Natural Resources suggests you get there this weekend because the annual ritual could end quickly.
DNR and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service workers arrived Friday afternoon to assess the Wolf River and prepare for their annual work with the prehistoric fish here.
“They are just starting to spawn on the private side of the dam,” Ryan Koenigs, sturgeon biologist for the DNR, said Friday. “By tomorrow morning, things should be in full swing around here. Tomorrow would be a good day to see the fish.”
Sturgeon were spawning along the shorelines from New London to Shawano on Friday.
“Tomorrow (Saturday) will be the big show here,” Koenigs said. “The females south of here are already half spent regarding ovulation, so Friday was the peak spawning day down there.”
Earlier Friday, three DNR crews tagged about 400 fish in New London and Shiocton, including Sturgeon Trail and Bamboo Bend.
On Thursday, the DNR tagged 52 fish at Sturgeon Trail, seven fish at the Manawa dam on the Little Wolf River and 12 fish at the Clintonville dam on the Pigeon River. Koenigs noted a spawning pod at the Pigeon River is a first in the agency’s history.
Koenigs anticipates a sharp decline in spawning by Monday morning.
“It has been in the 70s the last couple days, and the water is rapidly warming up, and the fish are responding quickly,” Koenigs said. “This will be a short run, lasting four to five days. Usually it is seven to 10 days.”
Carlos Echevarria, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services hatchery manager who oversees the collection of sturgeon eggs for various restoration projects, also expects a busy Saturday.
“Things are looking real good right now,” he said. “Saturday will probably be a heavy day down here.”
After collecting the eggs, workers disinfect them with an iodine compound to avoid transmitting diseases to nursery populations. A clay solution is used to make the eggs less sticky to better control fungus infections in the hatcheries.
The hatcheries will grow the sturgeon until they’re about 10 inches long and then release them.
Fish and Wildlife Services personnel will gather eggs for Georgia-based Warmwater Springs, which stocks sturgeon in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama waters, and the Genoa National Fish Hatchery, which raises sturgeon to be distributed onto the Legend Lake complex on the Menominee Indian Reservation every other year, as well as other estuaries.
A group from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Science is also expected. They will use the eggs to foster sturgeon populations in the Menomonee and Milwaukee rivers in Milwaukee County.
DID YOU KNOW?
- The largest sturgeon ever handled in a spawning assessment operation (240 pounds, 87.5 inches long and probably about 125 years old) was netted in Shawano in 2012.
- Sturgeon eat small organisms such as snails, insect larvae, leeches, small clams.
- The sturgeon is considered a living fossil, remaining unchanged for more than 150 million years.
- Sturgeon typically live at the bottom of lakes where food is more plentiful.
- Fertile sturgeon eggs hatch in five to eight days Newly hatched sturgeon grow to 1 inch in 12 to 14 days.
- Female sturgeon spawn every four, five or six years.
- The oldest sturgeon recorded in Lake Winnebago history was an 82-year-old female in 1953.
- The largest lake sturgeon caught by hook and line weighed 170 pounds, 10 ounces. It was caught in Burnett County in 1979. The largest sturgeon caught during spearing season was 212 pounds, taken from Lake Winnebago in 2010.