Volunteers to keep eyes on fish
By Greg Seubert
As far as Don Mielke is concerned, spawning lake sturgeon need all the help they can get.
That’s why the Menasha man is behind an effort to revive the Sturgeon Guard program, a group of volunteers that help protect the large fish that make their way up the Wolf and Fox rivers from Lake Winnebago each spring to spawn and are vulnerable to poaching.
After overseeing the program since its inception in the 1980s, state Department of Natural Resources officials announced last year that the program would be discontinued for the foreseeable future due to fewer volunteers and a drop in illegal harvest cases.
That announcement came after the agency canceled the Guard in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19.
“To me, it gave an open invitation to anyone that was even thinking of the possibility of doing some illegal activity,” Mielke said. “I know that we had a great number of people volunteering in the past. I talked to a few of them and they were equally disturbed that the river system was just not going to be watched any more.”
Spawning sturgeon – some of them more than 7 feet long – have drawn big crowds for years, including along the Wolf River Sturgeon Trail near New London, Bamboo Bend in Shiocton and below the dam in Shawano.
“I live on the shore of Lake Winnebago and have been an active sturgeon fisherman all my life,” Mielke said. “If somebody would spear a 100-pound fish, people would travel 50, 60 miles to see it. Now, we have such a wonderful population of big fish and I feel a great part of that has to do with the Guard. I know (poaching) is still going on and I guess (the decision to suspend the program) really struck a nerve with me.”
Sturgeon For Tomorrow, a statewide organization that created the Sturgeon Guard with the DNR in the 1980s, is helping fund the program, according to Mielke.
“The Sturgeon For Tomorrow group was adamant about trying to find someone to continue it,” he said.
Mielke contacted all five of the group’s chapter presidents, as well as DNR sturgeon biologist Margaret Stadig and conservation warden captain Ben Treml.
Treml came to Mielke’s home to discuss Mielke’s idea.
“He said, ‘Don, I came here to your house for one reason: to talk you out of this,’” Mielke said. “He said, ‘After I listened to your ideas, I don’t see why it can’t work.’ With that, we were off and running.”
Volunteers will be stationed along the Wolf River from New London to Shawano and along the Fox River in the Princeton and Montello areas.
“What (the DNR) would like to see us do is we will be their eyes,” Mielke said. “We will write down things and take pictures. We are also on a mission to educate. All of these volunteers are going to have information sheets on why the fish are doing this. We are certainly going to continue the tradition of the Guard.”
Volunteers
Mielke said he wouldn’t be able to revive the program without help from others, including Josh Reitz of Scandinavia.
“There’s no way one person can do it,” he said. “We’re dividing the areas up into quadrants. A gentleman named Ed contacted me and he lives in Montello. He sent me an email and has been involved with the Guard for years. He’s going to be the leader for the Princeton area and he has his group of volunteers.”
Mielke already has several volunteers lined up for this year’s spawning event, which typically happens in mid- to late-April and in the past has lasted from three to 11 days.
“The response I’ve gotten has been overwhelming,” he said. “I’m answering emails now as I’m sitting at my desk. We have a gentleman from Park Falls, a lady from Stevens Point, people from Bloomer. I have other family and friends that I can tap into. We will contact people via phone approximately two days before we need them at various sites. After they serve their shift, we’ll send them a thank you letter and a gift card that they can use for either fuel or food, whatever they choose. It was just an idea that came to me.”
Anyone interested in volunteering can call Mielke at 920-428-1386 or email him at [email protected].
“I prefer an email simply because I can print that off,” he said. “When you send me an email, also include your phone number because that’s the way we’re going to be contacting people. I’m not going to turn down any volunteers.”
Mielke doesn’t want to think about what could happen to Lake Winnebago’s sturgeon population without the Guard.
“No one has a crystal ball, but I can see the system deteriorating slowly when you take these massive fish – the extremely healthy males and females – out of production,” he said. “There are a lot of people that want to abuse this sport, but I have found a lot of people that want to keep the tradition going.”