Sturgeon Spearing ends with numbers higher than last year, but still low

The 2025 sturgeon spearing season is now closed for Lake Winnebago and the up river lakes.

The final day, which was Sunday, February 23, 2025, had 47 fish speared on Winnebago and 11 fish were speared on the Upriver Lakes.

The final numbers for all categories on Lake Winnebago were 95 juvenal females, 273 females and 249 males. On the up river lakes it was 47 juvenal females, 80 adult females and 230 males bringing the total of fish speared to 974. More than twice what was harvested last year when poor ice conditions kept many spearers away, but still far under the nearly 2400 the caps would have allowed.

Although no harvest caps were reached for any of the categories, the 90% harvest trigger was met for the Upriver Lakes for males on the final day.

This years low numbers are mostly being attributed to water clarity, which was said to be poor in most areas of Lake Winnebago.

Impressively, another two fish were harvested over 100 pounds Sunday, bringing the total to 63 for the season, or just about 6% of the total harvest which the DNR was quoted as saying was incredible.

The DNR station seeing the most fish registered was the Poygan station with 221. Coming in second, and having the most for Lake Winnebago was the Quinney station with 172 fish.