'It's like a ghost town out there': Warm temperatures deter most sturgeon spearers from going on the ice opening day

The 2024 Sturgeon spearing season kicked off Saturday with a record-low number of fish speared — as of 11 a.m., just five had been brought to shore.

Last year's opening weekend total was 783 fish.

As far as Margaret Stadig, a Lake Winnebago System sturgeon biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, was aware, there had never been so few sturgeon harvested on opening day. The DNR weighing stations, usually filled with a steady flow of people hauling in sturgeon from the lakes, were mostly vacant all day.

Lake Winnebago's sturgeon spearing season begins the second weekend in February and lasts 16 days, or until the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reaches its harvest quota. Normally, thousands of spearers set up shanties on Lake Winnebago and the Upriver Lakes — Lake Poygan, Lake Poygan, Lake Winneconne and Lake Butte des Morts — days before the season begins and take to the ice on opening day before sunrise. But unseasonably warm temperatures for the past couple weeks have made ice conditions hazardous, and most spearers elected to remain on land Saturday.

"It’s just a completely different year. It’s crazy," said Harley Parks, of Neenah, as he parked at Waverly Beach in Menasha around 6 a.m. Saturday, searching for a place to set up on Lake Winnebago. "Like by now, the lake would be loaded. It’s like a ghost town out there."

On Saturday, the DNR counted around 400 shanties on Lake Winnebago, and 200 spread out across the three Upriver Lakes.

In comparison, last year's less-than-ideal ice conditions brought 3,000 spearers to Lake Winnebago, and 6,000 were on the lake the year before, "when the ice was basically like driving on concrete," Stadig said. On the Upriver Lakes, a maximum of 500 spearers a year get a license to spear.

Bad luck for spearers with Upriver Lakes permits

While Lake Winnebago has an average success rate of 5% to 8% of people getting a fish each year, the success rate on the Upriver Lakes is much higher — about 50% to 60%, Stadig said.

This is because Lake Poygan, Lake Winneconne and Lake Butte des Morts are shallower and clearer, and have the limit of how many people can spear there.

Licenses for spearing on the Upriver Lakes are given out through a drawing that gives priority to spearers with the most preference points. Each year, spearers can purchase one preference point and not enter that year's drawing, or enter the drawing and receive a point if they are not selected for a permit.

Spearers often wait close to a decade to get a spot on the Upriver Lakes. David Voyarski, the DNR Eastern District Fisheries Supervisor, said people with permits on the Upriver Lakes this year have to use it or lose it.

“Essentially, the DNR has to have open seasons, it’s in statute and rule that the season is what it is, as far as on Winnebago and Upriver Lakes, and so we have no authority to close the season due to weather," Voyarski said. "If that season’s going on, we have to issue those tags, and once people are issued a tag, then of course they lose their preference points and they start, just like everyone else, trying to accumulate points for the next time.”

Ben Reitz, a 13-year-old from Scandinavia, was able to get a permit for the Upriver Lakes for his first year of spearing. After his grandfather's best friend died, his widow transferred the man's points to Ben.

"His grandpa and his best friend had been putting in to go together. And when he passed away, his wife was like, ‘I’d like your son to be able to go with his grandpa,'" said Ben's mother, Jennifer Reitz.

Jennifer and her husband, Josh Reitz, decided not to go out on the ice Saturday, and instead spent the day checking out different parts of the lakes and supporting a local business for lunch. While the family decided not to risk heading out on the ice this weekend, they hope colder weather in the coming week might improve ice conditions by next weekend.

"I'm a little annoyed," Ben Reitz said.

Spearers modify plans for safety on thin ice

Multiple shanties fell through the ice on Lake Winnebago Saturday, and on Friday afternoon, local municipalities helped to rescue two people when an ATV fell through the ice, DNR Lieutenant Chris Shea said.

Shea warned people that no ice is completely safe, and the ice on the lakes Saturday was particularly hazardous.

Parks headed out on the ice Saturday with Josh Fast, of Kimberly. The two men said they had monitored the ice over the last few days to determine where they felt comfortable spearing.

To lighten the load, they substituted portable shacks for permanent shanties, and one-pound propane tanks instead of 20-pounders, Fast said.

Shea said most people on the ice Saturday modified their normal set-ups to account for thin ice.

“The vast majority of spearers who are proceeding out on the ice are walking out this year, and they’re using portable hub-style shacks. However, I’ve personally seen over 20 rec vehicles that would include ATVs, snowmobiles and UTVs today out on Lake Winnebago," Shea said at a news conference Saturday morning.

Parks' father, Jeff Parks, opted to not go out on the ice this opening day, but sat in his truck before sunrise watching spearers head out.

He said he has been sturgeon spearing nearly all his life, and has never seen the ice this thin.

"I wasn’t too excited about my son going out, but I just told him make sure he has ice picks and be safe.,” Jeff Parks said.

Shea advised anyone going on the ice to tell someone where they will be, and to carry "basic safety gear," including a cell phone, an ice pick, and traction devices on shoes.

Opening day festivities mostly take place on land

Even though the majority of people with spearing permits didn't get out on the ice, many fishing clubs and local bars invited people to still get out on opening day and support local businesses.

Woodeye's Bar & Grill in Winneconne is usually a hub for opening day sturgeon spearing festivities. Connected to Critters Wolf River Sport, which sells outdoor gear and collectable sturgeon spearing sweatshirts, and next to a DNR weighing station, the bar invites lucky spearers on opening weekend to bring in their fish and lay them on the pool table.

By lunchtime Saturday, the tarp-covered pool table was empty, without a trace of fish blood. But patrons filled the bar to grab a drink and a meal, watch the Badgers, and wait in hopes of catching a glimpse of maybe one sturgeon.

"Obviously no fish yet ... I kind of expect to see maybe one or two today," said Chris Boucher, owner of Woodeye's and Critters, around noon. "As the week goes on, I think we’ll see some of those fish come through. The downfall of that is you won’t have the crowd participating to watch.”

Boucher said opening day of sturgeon spearing season typically brings "a couple hundred" people into the Winneconne bar, and "a half a dozen rotating fish on the pool table." It's a tradition that people love, but it leaves a lingering smell of dead fish in the bar — so Boucher only allows it one weekend a year.

"You have to really like sturgeon spearing and have your business committed to sturgeon spearing to destroy your restaurant with that smell for a week," he said.

Other bars around the area welcomed people for land-based activities. Rocky & Tara's Nut Haus in Kaukauna invited people to park their shanties at the venue and stop in for a drink, warm food and live music.

Uncertainty about the future of sturgeon spearing

Harley Parks said he wanted to go out Saturday in spite of the poor ice conditions to make the most of a season he fears may be Lake Winnebago's last.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been conducting a status review since 2019 to determine if lake sturgeon should be listed on the federal Endangered Species Act. The results of that finding is set to be released June 30.

If the federal agency determines lake sturgeon are endangered, it may impact the future of Lake Winnebago's sturgeon spearing tradition.

A bipartisan group of Wisconsin's U.S. senators and respresentatives are supporting a bill that would exempt Wisconsin's lake sturgeon from being listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Standig said the DNR has been working for decades to closely monitor the Lake Winnebago system's sturgeon population.

"We've been working with U.S. Fish and Wildlife closely, giving them data, making sure they understand not only our calculation, but how our management works and how we do things, and whether or not our populations are increasing or stable, how the spearing season works, and things like that," Standig said. "We basically have given all of this data over to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, to kind of highlight our season, highlight our population, and then from there U.S. Fish and Wildlife will end up making whatever decision that they are going to make."

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This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: 'It's like a ghost town out there': Warm temperatures deter most sturgeon spearers from going on the ice opening day