2011 Lake Sturgeon Spawning
Come Face To Face With Prehistory
Become one of the crowd as lake sturgeon make their annual spawning run up the Wolf River, Wisconsin.
SPAWNING UPDATE
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Several new females moved in and started spawning vigorously with dozens of males this afternoon along County X, Sturgeon Trail, west of New London. Fish have also began moving in along the rocks at Bamboo Bend along Hwy 54 west of Shiocton, although at 3 PM this afternoon spawning had not yet started there, the fish were behaving like things would start sometime yet this evening or tonight. The numbers of fish now moving on shore at these two sites, along with the steady increase in water temperature over the last three days may be just what we need to get things rolling this week with the main pulse of sturgeon spawning on the Wolf River this year. Water temps in New London were at 46.4 degrees F this afternoon, up from 40 degrees a few days ago. The magic temps are typically in the low to mid 50s for sturgeon spawning, but given it is getting late this year, and the fish have already "stewed" in water at or above 50 degrees this spring prior to the cold spell last week, they may start the big push at a lower temperature. The next couple of days should tell the story.
We will be tagging fish tomorrow at Cty X and hopefully Bamboo Bend, then checking out fish activity at the Shawano Dam. You can see a sturgeon occasionally now on the underwater Wolf River Cam at Shawano Dam
http://wolfrivercam.com/Shawano%20Dam.html; (exit DNR) and when we start tagging there hopefully sometime this week you will be able to watch our tagging operation live on the "Shawano Above" cam set up at the dam
http://wolfrivercam.com/Shawano%20Above.html. (exit DNR). You can also see sturgeon now and then move up into the camera view on the "Shawano Above" camera at this time. The number of fish in this view should build over the next few days hopefully. This camera is located where we annually see and capture most of the 200 pound+ females. Once we begin netting here I will let you know so you can try to watch us on the web cam tagging fish.
http://dnr.wi.gov/fish/sturgeon/sturgeon_spawning.html
