Sturgeon Report 2/19

Well I figured we would be close to the 90% trigger on Lake Winnebago after today’s harvest as we were only 63 adult females away from that mark.  However, today’s harvest of 52 adult females didn’t quite get us to that mark  and the season will continue at least through Friday.  We did get closer to the 100% season closure mark and I suspect it will be a close call on whether the season continues into Saturday or not.  It will come down to how much effort increases with tomorrow being a Friday and a little better forecasted weather day.  As we stand now, a harvest of 94 or more adult females tomorrow would close down the fishery, whereas a harvest of 11-93 adult females would add one more day (Saturday) to the fishery on Lake Winnebago.  Either way, I plan to have my harvest numbers out shortly after season closure tomorrow so spearers know whether the season will continue into Saturday or not.  

The largest fish harvested today was Andrew Gorecki’s 114.2 pound, 74.2” sturgeon registered at Payne’s Point.  A total of 5 fish >100 pounds were harvested today, 2 were registered at Payne’s Point and 3 were registered at Wendt’s.