2026 sturgeon spearing season ends after 10 days

The 2026 sturgeon spearing season has come to an early close due to the adult female cap being reached.

Yesterday was the final day for Lake Winnebago spearing, while the upriver lakes season ended after only 3 days after the adult female cap was met there.

The last time the season was ended early was in 2015 when the season lasted 8 days.

On the final day yesterday, there were only 16 sturgeon harvested. The totals for the entire system this year was 202 juvenile females, 670 adult females and 668 males for a grand total of 1,540 sturgeon.

There were 1,261 sturgeon harvested from Lake Winnebago and 279 sturgeon from the Upriver Lakes.

The Stockbridge registration station had the most registered with
357 for the season, after an impressive 148 opening day.

The largest amount of 100 pound plus fish were registered at the Downtown Oshkosh registration station with a total of 11.

Spearers had not only great ice conditions opening weekend, but also good access and good water clarity. The DNR says all of these components are likely what facilitated the best opening weekend in over a decade. On Lake Winnebago there were 779 sturgeon harvested and 250 from the Upriver lakes opening weekend alone.

After that, warm weather and rain during the week slowed down daily harvests significantly.

The DNR added that after the previous two years of harvest levels below 500 sturgeon, it’s good to have a year where many spearers were able to find success.

This year, a total of 54 sturgeon over 100 pounds were speared, with 43 of them coming from Lake Winnebago. The heaviest was a 148-pound female speared opening weekend on the Upriver Lakes.