Wisconsin sturgeon spearing rebounds from warm 2024 season

Sturgeon spearing in Wisconsin rebounded this year after an unseasonably warm winter put a damper on the sport in 2024.

Spearers harvested more than twice as many lake sturgeon this season than they did last year on Lake Winnebago and the Upriver Lakes systems, according to data from the state Department of Natural Resources. 

This year’s sturgeon spearing season started on Feb. 8 and ended Sunday. Spearers harvested 943 lake sturgeon this year, up from 432 sturgeon in 2024, according to the DNR. 

“We had pretty decent ice throughout the system, allowing a lot of the spearers to head out,” said Margaret Stadig, a lake sturgeon biologist for the DNR. “Because of that, we definitely saw an increase in the number of fish harvested.”

Even with the improved ice conditions, the water was less clear, which may have contributed to spearers not hitting the DNR’s harvest caps, Stadig said. Those harvest caps are set to protect the sturgeon population from overfishing and ensure sturgeon spearing can continue into the future.

“Particularly on Lake Winnebago, it’s been a long while since we have hit our harvest caps,” she said.

During the season, she said the lake fills with ice shanties and “legitimately looks like a neighborhood popped up overnight.” But last year’s high temperatures meant there wasn’t a community of shanties.

“There were areas of Lake Winnebago where you could actually take your boat out onto the lake,” she said. “We just never really had good ice.”

Sturgeon fisherman Zack Wendt said the improved ice conditions were a welcome change from last year.

His family owns the Wendt’s on the Lake restaurant in Van Dyne near Lake Winnebago. Each year, the restaurant displays speared sturgeon outside, and also serves food and drinks outside for people coming in from spearing.

“We had a great, great season. A lot of people came out and had fun,” Wendt said. “Next year hopefully we just keep getting good ice and hopefully some better water clarity.”

For many who participate, he said sturgeon spearing helps foster camaraderie between friends and family. In his family, Wendt said sturgeon spearing is a long-running tradition that he’s shared with his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

He went spearing this year, but said the water wasn’t very clear and he wasn’t able to spear a fish. Even so, he said he still “had fun and made some memories.”

“It’s so fun seeing the same faces and a lot of new faces joining sturgeon spearing and seeing everybody’s reactions,” Wendt said. “I know a couple people [who] got their first fish this season, and they’ve been going for five years.”

Likewise, Stadig said the sturgeon spearing community is very committed. She starts getting emails and calls as early as December from spearers asking about the sturgeon population or water clarity.

“It really is this huge community that is celebrating this population and these spearers,” she said of the spearing season. “There is so much tradition behind it that it really does feel like a holiday, like we’re used to with Christmas or Fourth of July.”