DNR Lake Winnebago Sturgeon and Walleye Update 6-18-2010

Dear Winnebago Sturgeon and Walleye Enthusiasts:

Our Upper Fox-Wolf-Winnebago fish crews are in full summer mode at the moment conducting flathead catfish surveys on the Wolf and upper Fox Rivers, monitoring walleye tournaments on Lake Winnebago, and starting our sweep of stream surveys throughout our counties. The flathead catfish are on the move up the rivers as part of their annual spawning run which provides a great opportunity for us to net and tag fish and collect valuable biological information.

Walleye News…….

Walleye Tournament Monitoring - Each June we monitor numerous walleye tournaments on Lake Winnebago where we collect tag return data on all fish brought in that allows us to develop our walleye population estimates; and length, weight, sex, maturity, and age data on the unreleasable fish brought in by the tournament anglers. All the big tournaments are catch and release, but walleye are actually fairly sensitive to handling and despite excellent efforts by local clubs such as Lighthouse Anglers and Otter Street Fishing Club we usually see about a 25 to 50% mortality rate - over the past two weekends working the MWC/Cabelas and Mercury National tournaments we handled over 2400 walleye, of which around 1400 were returned alive to the lake; and we were able to collect very valuable data on all the fish that could not be released. Mortality rates are influenced by water temperatures, wind, and the number of fish in live wells. After we collect our data on the unreleasable fish, local angling clubs clean the fish and donate the fillets to local food pantries. Out of the estimated 1-2 million angler hours invested in the fishery on the Winnebago System each year, tournament angling accounts for about 70,000 to 80,000 angler hours.

Winnebago Public Walleye Meetings - We have scheduled a series of public meetings around the Winnebago Region on July 13, and August 10, 11 and 12 to review and discuss our walleye assessments and management program on the Winnebago System. Attached is a flyer with details about the meeting objectives and locations. At each meeting we will be providing a summary of the status and trends of the Winnebago walleye population and gathering public input to help us update our Winnebago Walleye Management Plan. Put one (or more) of the meeting dates on your calendar. We will have tons of information to present, and hope to gather tons of good input for our walleye management plan update.

Sturgeon News………..

Our sturgeon are pretty much into their summer patterns now as well - 85% of the adults feeding heavily on lakefly larvae in Lake Winnebago, 13% in the Upriver Lakes, and 2% that never leave the rivers; juveniles primarily in the Upriver Lakes, although some are spread out throughout the entire system from Shawano to Winnebago, and this year’s hatchlings should be about 3″ long right now, living independently on sand and pea gravel bars 60 to 100 miles up the Wolf River, and 20-40 miles up the upper Fox River.

Our book People of the Sturgeon, Wisconsin’s Love Affair with an Ancient Fish is doing quite well having won 6 regional or national awards! The people’s stories are what brought this book to life, so I hope all sturgeon spearers and other Winnebago sturgeon enthusiasts can all feel some pride in how well the book is doing. The book is still available at major book stores, Amazon.com, and your local Sturgeon for Tomorrow Chapter.

Finally - an early reminder - if you are planning on applying for an Upriver lakes sturgeon spearing tag to get into the lottery in 2011, make sure you purchase your URL sturgeon lottery application for $3 before August 1. This will get you into the lottery and if you have enough preference points, put you in a good position to get authorized to buy an URL sturgeon spearing license for 2011. The lottery winners are drawn in August and notified that they have been authorized to purchase an URL license. All license sales for Winnebago and URL sturgeon spearing licenses end October 31. Licenses are $20 for residents and $65 for non-residents. All funds from sturgeon spearing license sales stay right here on the Winnebago System for our sturgeon program.

That’s it for now - hope to see you at one of our walleye meetings………..

Ron

Ronald M. Bruch, PhD
Upper Fox-Wolf Fisheries Work Unit Supervisor
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
625 E County Rd Y, Suite 700
Oshkosh, WI 54901
USA

(() phone: (920) 424-3059
(() fax: (920) 424-4404
(+) e-mail: ronald.bruch@wisconsin.gov
Sturgeon Hot-Line: (920) 303-5444