Day 7 of 2026 sturgeon spearing update

Many spearers were able to get back out onto the ice today mostly with smaller ATVs to enjoy another weekend of spearing. Who would have thought at the beginning of this season we would make it to the second weekend? But that is just what mother nature handed us this year. 

Many spearers were likely excited to get another weekend spearing, particularly those who have work or school during the week. We hope they were able to get back out and enjoy. 

Today a total of 34 lake sturgeon were speared on Lake Winnebago with 2 juvenile females, 15 adult females and 17 males. 

After a strong opening weekend where most of the harvest was coming from the northeast portion of the lake, now the harvest is fairly spread throughout the system. The two registration stations with the most fish harvested was Stockbridge on the east side (9 lake sturgeon) and Southwest Winnebago on the west side (8 lake sturgeon). 

The current totals for the entire Winnebago system are 198 juvenile females, 643 adult females and 647 males for a total of 1,488 lake sturgeon. 

View the full Day 8 Harvest Report online.

With 2 more fish over 100 pounds speared today, there have been a total of 52 lake sturgeon harvest over 100 pounds. The largest today was speared by Michael Scharschmidt, a 70.4-inch and 113.8-pound, F4 female sturgeon. 

Unlike most years where a majority of the 100-pound lake sturgeon come from the east side of the lake, many of the 100-pound lake sturgeon are being registered at either Downtown Oshkosh (11 fish so far) or Stockbridge (9 fish so far). After talking with many spearers, during the beginning of the season, many were spearing pretty far out into the lake and then simply returning to their local registration station for registration. 

This could mean that many of the 100-pound sturgeon might actually have been coming from the middle of the lake where the DNR found most of the chironomid (red worm) forage that lake sturgeon prefer (see image below). 

We are in for some cold weather tonight, so hopefully that will give spearers better ice for Sunday.  But please remember that no ice is 100% safe, so please be cautious and check with your local fishing and spearing clubs for ice updates.