Sturgeon begin spawning in Wisconsin's Wolf River: MARCH 21, 2012: Curious onlookers watch sturgeon spawn today along the Wolf River just outside New London. The sustained unseasonably high temperatures have prompted the earliest recorded sturgeon spawn.
People who want to see sturgeon spawning on the Wolf River are being urged to do so this weekend, lest they miss the remaining action.
Those who want to see fish are advised to head to Bamboo Bend on State 54 at the west end of Shiocton, or at Sturgeon Park below the Shawano dam.
It's been a brief, but active spawning season, having started Tuesday night.
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"The warm weather and water temperatures are really pushing the fish and the intense spawning will not likely last more than a couple days at each site," state Department of Natural Resources sturgeon expert Ron Bruch said in a release Friday night.
Bruch said DNR crews captured and tagged nearly 300 sturgeon Friday at several sites in the New London and Shiocton areas. Included was a "white" lake sturgeon — about 1 in 10,000 have very little pigment and are white.
By the end of Friday, fish were beginning to move in to a few other sites on private property in the Shiocton-Leeman areas. Spawning is already winding down in the New London area, he said.
"We expect to be tagging fish in Shawano by the end of the weekend and likely collecting eggs on Monday there for the various restoration projects we are assisting," Bruch said.
"Egg-taking day is quite demanding as the fish don't always cooperate when you want them to and we will have folks here from Georgia, Tennessee, and two groups from Wisconsin all needing our assistance on Monday — probably the busiest and most intense sturgeon-day of the year for us."
