Family has sturgeon spearing success
WINNECONNE - The sturgeon spearing shack was mostly dark and quiet early Saturday morning.
The only sounds were a soft hiss from a propane heater and the occasional kaboom of the Lake Poygan ice. That happens when the temperature is minus 8 as it was at sunrise.
The only light in the shanty was a gritty, green glow that came through the 3 by 5 foot hole in the floor.
Jay Wade of Litchfield, Michigan, and I sat on opposite sides of the opening and stared down at the living flat screen.
“One of those submarines could be coming through any time,” Wade said.
We were the only spearers in the shack, but we weren’t the only ones watching the show. More than 10,000 spearers were positioned around the Lake Winnebago System on Saturday, opening day of the 2019 sturgeon spearing season.
Two other shacks in our group were positioned a few hundred yards to our south and north.
While we all looked down through holes cut in the ice, Mother Nature provided each of us with an act unique to our location.
Wade and I were part of a spearing party organized by Paul Muche of Van Dyne. It included five Upriver Lakes tag holders (Wade, Paul Muche, Michelle Muche, Chad Muche and Eli Muche).
Four others (Karen Rediske of Mayville, Glen Wiesmueller of Fox Lake, Roman Muche of Van Dyne and me) did not have Upriver Lakes tags but were along to observe and assist.
Paul and Michelle are husband and wife, and Eli is their 10-year-old son. Chad Muche is Paul’s brother, and father of Roman. Rediske is Paul’s aunt, and Wiesmueller and I are friends of the Muches
As you’ve probably surmised, sturgeon spearing is an activity the Muches love to share with family and friends.
“When you think about what’s unique to our area, nothing tops (sturgeon spearing),” said Paul Muche, 48. “We grew up doing it and it’s a big part of who we are.”
The Winnebago System sturgeon population is among the pantheon of North American fish and wildlife success stories.
The native lake sturgeon had been hammered by unregulated harvest and poaching through the early 1900s. Officials with the Wisconsin Conservation Commission closed the season to help sturgeon recover.
Then beginning in 1931 the commission and its successor, the Department of Natural Resources, used protective regulations and collaborative management with local sportsmen to bring the sturgeon population back to robust health.
The Winnebago System now contains one of the largest and best-managed sturgeon populations in the world.
The sturgeon population in the Lake Winnebago system is estimated at 19,000 adult females and 24,000 adult males, as well as an undetermined number of juvenile fish, according to DNR reports.
A system of protective harvest caps allows an annual harvest but prevents more than 5 percent of the stock from being taken in any year.
The result is a growing sturgeon population with more big, old fish than at any time in the last century, according to DNR fisheries biologists.
Local conservation groups have been integral to the sturgeon comeback, serving in Sturgeon Guard camps during spawning season and supporting the restrictive harvest regulations.
There is simply no other fishery that rivals it.
Wade, an avid outdoorsman who lives in southeastern Michigan, helps give perspective to the world-class Winnebago sturgeon resource.
Only two winter sturgeon fisheries are held in North America: the Winnebago System in Wisconsin and Black Lake in Michigan.
Black Lake this year had a harvest quota of six sturgeon; the season lasted 78 minutes. The protection of the resource is laudable. But the opportunity afforded to spearers is exponentially smaller on Black Lake than on the Winnebago System.
Wade participated in a couple seasons in his home state without success.
“I figured if I ever wanted to spear a sturgeon, I’d better come to Wisconsin,” Wade said.
He has now bought a Winnebago System license and traveled to Wisconsin for eight straight years.
The first three hours Saturday passed uneventfully in our shack. At our spot in the Upriver Lakes, the bottom was barely visible in 6 feet of water.
Every so often, Wade would reach out and twitch the line of his decoy, a series of large, willow leaf spinner blades. At 10:30, everything changed. “There’s a fish,” Wade said, looking southeast under the hole. “It’s gone now.”
Twenty seconds passed and a flash of movement returned, then faded.
A moment later it was back. A large head nosed into view, then, in a move that surprised us both, the fish turned on its back, exposing its light belly.
The fish, thick and about five feet long, then turned right-side-up and drifted toward the bottom.
Wade had his opportunity. He slipped the spear off its holder and thrust it toward the sturgeon.
His aim was true. Minutes later Paul Muche helped pull the fish out of the shack into the bright sunshine.
Muche couldn’t stay long. Michelle had just called him; she had a fish on, too.
We trotted over the ice to her shack. Minutes later her fish was landed, too.
And that’s not all: Chad Muche speared a fish minutes earlier, we learned.
From 10:30 to 10:45, three big sturgeon moved beneath our shacks.
“That’s the way it happens sometimes, just like deer hunting,” Chad Muche said. “Nothing’s there one minute and then they’re all around.”
Chad Muche’s was the biggest of the batch, a 71-pound, 66-inch male. Wade’s fish was a 44-pound, 57-inch F2 female (with black eggs), and Michelle Muche’s fish was a 41-pound, 60-inch F1 female (it spawned last year).
The fish will be turned into delicious meals of smoked and deep-fried sturgeon. And the eggs from Wade’s fish will become caviar.
Over the coming days, Paul and Eli Muche will return to the shacks in an effort to fill their tags.
“I don’t know what we’ll see,” Paul Muche said. “But I know we’re going to savor the experience.”