Upriver Lakes lottery fishery closed at 12:30 PM today
Sunday, February 12:The Upriver Lakes lottery fishery closed at 12:30 PM today after spearers there registered 20 adult females tripping the 100% harvest closure trigger of 83 adult females total. The 2012 Upriver Lakes spearing season goes into the books at a total of 242 fish (see breakdown below and in attachment) and as the shortest season (2 days) since the lottery fishery began in 2007 (see attachment 2 for details on URL seasons 1952-2012).
The harvest on Lake Winnebago today was slow, but the very cold weather has resulted in somewhat improved ice conditions in some areas on the big lake which likely was at least part of the reason shanty counts on Lake Winnebago increased from 2197 yesterday to 2544 today. We are still in for a long season though and expect at this point to go for the full 16 days on Lake Winnebago. If the ice conditions hold, Lake Winnebago spearers should have plenty of time to still get out on the lake to spear. Spearers reported seeing more vehicles in some areas along the east shore, although as always spearers need to be cautious when traveling on the ice as reports also came in that indicated some ice cracks opened up due to ice shifting caused by the strong winds the last two days
