Spawning sturgeon return to Wolf River
By Greg Seubert
They’re called lake sturgeon, but on this day, they were the kings and queens of the river.
The fish – some of them more than 6 feet long and weighing more than 100 pounds – arrived along the shores of the Wolf River near New London and Shiocton April 25 for their annual spawning run.
Big crowds also showed up to see the fish in both communities, but no one was more excited than Margaret Stadig, the state Department of Natural Resources’ new sturgeon biologist.
She joined two crews of DNR employees and college students that began capturing fish April 26 at Bamboo Bend on Shiocton’s west side, just off of State Highway 54.
“This is completely new to me and definitely very unique to Wisconsin,” Stadig said. “Where I’ve worked with sturgeon before, they spawn deep in the water column, so you can’t see them. There are no crowds because there’s nothing to see. The fact that they’re here, they’re on the rocks and you can see them is so unique to anywhere else I’ve ever been working with this type of fish.”
Meanwhile, Don Paremski of Three Lakes showed up at the Wolf River Sturgeon Trail near New London April 27,
“I just came down here to look at the fish,” he said. “This is my first time. It’s quite the spectacle, something to see.”
Sturgeon run’s local impact
April Kopitzke, executive director of the New London Area Chamber of Commerce, said the spawning run has a positive effect on the New London area.
“Anyone who wants to be notified through email or phone can contact us ahead of time and on Monday (April 25), we contacted just over 2,300 out-of-town folks,” she said. “We’re pulling from Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, north and south. They get an automated call or email saying, ‘Hey, the sturgeon are here, make sure you come our way and check out our restaurants and our shops.’ It totally affects our tourism.”
While spawning sturgeon can be viewed in town at places like Riverview and Pfeifer parks, most people head to the Wolf River Sturgeon Trail, about 2 miles west of the city along County Trunk X.
“The city posted on its Facebook page the different areas where you can actually see the sturgeon,” Kopitzke said. “It’s not only out on the sturgeon trail. Pfeifer Park has multiple, more intimate areas to view the sturgeon spawning.”
The community looks forward to the fish’s return each year, according to Kopitzke.
“Growing up here, you don’t realize how awesome it is because you’ve been seeing it since you were a kid,” she said. “People are driving miles to see it. It’s a really cool experience.”
Stadig helped measure and weigh fish.
“It is better than I could have imagined,” she said. “I could have never imagined this number of fish this close to the surface and the public out here so excited.”
Sturgeon in the Wolf River
Sturgeon enter the Wolf River from Lake Winnebago each spring. The fish are able to swim nearly 100 miles upstream to a dam in Shawano. Others head up tributaries of the Wolf, such as the Little Wolf River.
“They are just so different than any other fish species,” Stadig said. “You pull them out of the water and they instantly look like a shark, but they’re so different from sharks because they don’t have teeth and they’re gentle giants. They’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs. You guys are so lucky to have a population that has been managed so well. You have such a robust population that allows for the harvest you have during spearing season.”
Stadig said she and her team were surprised to see large males early in the run, which can last for a few days to a week.
“What’s surprising us is that a lot of the very long, big fish we’re seeing are males,” she said. “Usually, the really big fish are females and this year, we’re seeing a lot of big males.”
Males spawn every two years, while females make the trip upstream from Wisconsin’s largest inland lake every four years.
“Because of that, there are more males in the system,” Stadig said. “Females spawn every four years, so we just don’t see them as frequently. For every one female we see, we’ll see three to five males.”
A lot of fish the crews netted in Shiocton had tags, which means they had been captured in previous years.
“It’s a little less than 50%, particularly yesterday, the first day we were here,” Stadig said. “We’re also seeing a lot of really big fish that we’ve never seen before. We measure them, we take sex and check for a tag. If they don’t have a tag, we give them a tag. If they do have a tag, we write it down. We use all of the information to get a population estimate.”
Stadig has worked with sturgeon in Michigan and Texas before accepting her new job earlier this year and admitted she wasn’t prepared from her first experience on the Wolf River.
“It blew me away,” she said. “I was just flabbergasted. I don’t think you can wipe the smile off my face right now.”