Weather, ice cooperate at White Lake

WEYAUWEGA - Things have to fall in place to have a successful fisheree, especially during the winter, including weather and safe ice. One day before the coldest temperatures in years moved into Waupaca County, organizers of the White Lake Aeration Conservation Club’s annual fisheree on Jan. 18 couldn’t have been happier with the way things turned out.
“It’s not as cold as it’s going to be,” club president Tom Buchholz said. “We were really excited to see that we were able to squeeze it in between the cold fronts. We appreciate the good weather.”
Hundreds of people headed to Waupaca County’s largest inland lake for the club’s 42nd annual fisheree.
“We were so hopeful that we would have ice,” Buchholz said. “In talking to people, they really wanted to come out and have a good time on the ice. We were really thankful to see some cold weather come in and we were able to have this. (The ice thickness) just wasn’t there, but then we had a couple of days of cold weather this week.”
Organizers ended up pulling the plug on last year’s fisheree because of unsafe ice conditions.

“The main thing that the White Lake Aeration Conservation Club does is supply dissolved oxygen to the fish through aerators,” Buchholz said. “Whenever we don’t have good ice for the lake, our club takes a bit of a hit because we depend on the revenue that we make off of this fisheree to support the whole project. One-hundred percent of what we make goes to run the engines and air compressors.
“We have this fisheree In order to raise money for that,” he said. “They’ve had an aerator here for more than 45 years and this continues to be a nice, good community project. We cater to kids by having bike raffles, food and hot chocolate, things that they would enjoy.
“We’ve been a club for 45 years and it’s a group of local people that live here,” he said. “I’d say over half the people in the club do not live on the lake. It’s really for anybody who wants to come and help do things for the lake. We watch over the lake, we build wood duck houses. It’s a feel-good club and we do a lot for the local community as well.”
Maintaining the lake’s aeration system isn’t the club’s only responsibility, according to Buchholz.
“Besides monitoring the dissolved oxygen levels, we also watch over the fish counts, fish habitat and the fish themselves,” he said. “We work with the fish biologist out of Shawano to keep the population of fish diverse. We have five species of panfish, we have walleyes, we have northerns.”
The lake also has some new residents.
“We recently stocked 3,500 perch about three weeks ago,” Buchholz said. “We were hoping to put some catchable fish in here for the fisheree for the little kids to catch. That means a lot to us to see the kids have a good time. They’re 6 or 7 inches and we buy them from a certified fish grower and the DNR has to approve the permit.”
Most local anglers are aware of White Lake’s reputation for small northern pike and weed growth.
“We have a program that we started in conjunction with the (state Department of Natural Resources) to try to eliminate the small growth pattern (for northern) that’s been here for 35, 40 years,” Buchholz said. “It’s always been a lake that has small northern. We now have a slot limit size. Fish that are over 25 inches need to go back into the water. We’re going to try that for several years to see if we can improve the size of the fish. Our goal is to catch the small northerns and let the big ones grow. Then,we would have bigger fish. You can keep fish that are under 25 inches. You can catch five fish a day.”
The lake’s slot limit is 25 to 35 inches and the daily bag limit is five fish.
White Lake also have a weed problem that the club has been dealing with for years.
“It’s a very shallow lake and it’s a manmade lake,” Buchholz said. “We actually have a dam that runs the water level of the lake. It gets a fair amount of weed growth because it is shallow. We have more than 22 species of water plants and the DNR likes to see the diversity we have here. Some people don’t like the weeds. There are two invasive species that are here and we’re monitoring the growth of those.”
White Lake covers 1,064 acres between Weyauwega and Manawa and has a maximum depth of 10 feet.
The DNR lists walleye as common in the lake and panfish, largemouth bass, northern pike and catfish as present.
Buchholz said there’s a good reason why the fisheree remains popular.
“The tent that we have makes it a party atmosphere with warm heaters,” he said. “Everyone can come in and take a break. Families really appreciate how we have it set up and I think that’s a draw. I was at the boat landing this morning a half-hour before daylight and I probably saw a dozen trucks drive on in the dark. When they come in, they tend to spend most of the day here.”
Buchholz also said the event isn’t showing any signs of slowing down anytime soon.
“It’s been two years since we’ve been able to have a good turnout and it looks like a great turnout today,” he said. “I’m really glad to see that because we were really behind during Covid and the warm weather. To have a great day like today means the world to us to keep this club afloat and moving forward.”