The astounding day of Lake Winnebago spearing that amazed the “Sturgeon General” and witnessed the anointing of a new “Sturgeon King,” began distressingly for Shane Malnory and Mike Kroll in their darkened ice shack.
The below-ice water in the 4×8-foot chain-sawed sturgeon hole gave off an eerie green glow, much like an aquarium. For the 32-year-old Oshkosh buddies, it was just like staring at a blank TV screen waiting for the Discovery Channel to come on.
Malnory rocked forward on his haunches. Kroll sat on a folding chair. Attached to long ropes, their 6-foot-long, 20-pound spears, with five, razor sharp, stainless steel tines, dangled from hooks within reach, and a crudely carved wooden fish decoy floated in the 11-foot deep water.
They stared at the nothingness in the dim light, hoping that a prehistoric fish shaped like a submarine would swim into the picture before the six-hour, Valentine’s Day season opener expired.
An hour into the morning, a brownish-skinned, white-bellied sturgeon appeared on radar. Malnory spied the fish’s snout outlined against the muddy lake bottom, exploded from his coiled position and heaved a spear. The churned-up water turned murky, as if the TV screen developed static, and nobody could see. The fish escaped.
“You have to be kidding me,” a disbelieving Malnory said. “God, I’m shaking. He was so big.”
Then he saw why he missed. The toss took a chunk out of the decoy. Malnory moaned.
The unique fishery was under way on 137,708-acre Lake Winnebago. Some 8,934 licensed spearers hauled out their shanties, creating a temporary city on the ice. Spearers chased one of the world’s most coveted fish, valuable elsewhere for its caviar eggs, but appreciated here more for its stupendous size.
No one anticipated that a season potentially open for 16 days would shut down in two. No one imagined that a combination of water clarity and a bounty of fish would produce the most intense Wisconsin sturgeon fishery in history and a take of 20 fish weighing 100 pounds or more. And no one dreamed David Piechowski of Red Granite would spear a lake-record fish of near-hallucinatory proportions–79 1/2 inches, 188 pounds.
On the afternoon before the opening, Ron Bruch, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ longtime sturgeon guru, made a modest prediction.
“Could be a busy day,” he said.
Not even the Sturgeon General foresaw the frenzy.
Sturgeon headquarters
Jerry’s Tavern in downtown Oshkosh is the headquarters of the 1,000-member Otter Street Fishing Club, which dispatches help to fishermen who imbed vehicles in Lake Winnebago slush holes. It is an official sturgeon registration station, where fish are weighed. And it is where fishermen thaw out, tell tales and drink beer. Owner Scott Engel, also fishing club president, said opening day is the bar’s busiest of the year.
Jerry’s, owned by Engel’s family since 1911, features a gigantic musky painting, a collection of well-used beer taps and framed pictures of local sports heroes, but more significant during spearing season is its status as a source of sturgeon lore.
Jerry’s Tavern is where Paul Bednarek’s 74-inch, 118-pound sturgeon is mounted in a glass case. The Oshkosh spearer tried again this year on opening day.
“I didn’t even see a minnow,” he said.
The extremes of Bednarek’s experiences are instructive. Sturgeon spearing is intense hours of often-boring concentration, punctuated by seconds of adrenaline-fueled action. Lulls may last years. Engel, 36, said he started spearing 10 years ago.
“I haven’t even seen one,” he said.
He is not alone. Mike Kuble, a warehouse manager, and Doug Mosher, a salesman, both from Oshkosh, were sturgeon virgins, never seeing one beneath the ice in eight years. Non-sturgeon spearing friends and co-workers ridicule their devotion.
“They just laugh at you,” Mosher said.
“They say, `You’re nuts,'” Kuble said.
In Iran, Russia and former Soviet Union republics surrounding the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea–where sturgeon are seen as magical fish because they produce caviar, the popular delicacy identified with the rich–Kuble and Mosher definitely would be considered loony for not catching the fish in nets.
Only Wisconsin has a major spearing season. While Black Lake in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan has a five-fish limit, Wisconsin’s 2004 harvest cap was set at 425 adult females, 425 juvenile females and 1,300 males.
However, as soon as fishermen reached 80 percent of the carefully managed cap in any category, a 24-hour notice of closure is declared.
Caviar wealth attracts poachers in Europe. But perhaps because caviar is legal for personal use only in Wisconsin, this is a low-key fishery, with 85 percent of the sturgeon taken by people who live within a two-county radius of Lake Winnebago. The philosophy of successful spearers is to “smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em.”
Bruch well understands the attraction of sturgeon, which have persevered for millions of years.
“It’s a big animal,” he said. “And it hasn’t changed in form since it has been on the planet. It’s basically a living dinosaur.”
New king crowned
By mid-morning, the buzz infiltrated the shacks on the lake, as if carried by the wind. There was a new Sturgeon King.
About 9 a.m., 2 1/2 hours into the opening, 5-foot-11-inch, 175-pound David Piechowski, 47, sunk his spear into a writhing, thrashing mass longer and heavier than he is, and he became famous.
Fishing near Wendt’s on the Lake restaurant in Van Dyne with his brother Jim on the sunny, 30-degree day, Piechowski, a jailer for the Waushara County sheriff’s department, spotted the sturgeon slinking along the bottom. It took the duo 15 minutes to manhandle the gargantuan fish through a 3×4-foot hole.
They hauled it to the Wendt’s scale and when the reading indicated poundage larger than the 1953 Lake Winnebago record of 180, the brothers brought the fish to a calibrated scale at a nearby feed mill. The fish did not surpass the Wisconsin sturgeon record of 195 pounds speared in Vilas County in 1979, but it was plenty big enough for Piechowski.
“It’s a little overwhelming,” Piechowski said. “It’s something everyone dreams of.”
People started calling him “superstar.” Many suggested it would cost Piechowski $1,000 to mount such a specimen, and he wasn’t sure what to do.
“I don’t know if I could find a wall big enough,” he said. “And besides, my wife said, `That’s not going in the living room.'”
Bar owners on Lake Winnebago swiftly pledged to mount the sturgeon if he left it on permanent display. Short of a request from the Smithsonian, that sounded like the solution to him.
“I want the people to enjoy it,” Piechowski said.
Astonishing haul
The people were enjoying all kinds of sturgeon. The line to weigh in sturgeon at Wendt’s was three hours long. The line at Jerry’s was 25 spearers deep. Men dragged their heavy fish along the sidewalk by rope, as if they were pets on leashes.
It was a veritable sturgeon carnival. The rule is one sturgeon per license per season. However, Bruch said, some try to skirt it by signing up wives, then telephoning them to meet them at a registration station once a second fish is speared.
Bill Curtis, 62, of Hortonville, never had seen a sturgeon in the wild before, but on opening day the retiree who now calls his occupation “professional sturgeon spearer” hauled in a 76-inch, 103-pounder.
“It came right up under the ice,” Curtis said. “When I saw it, it looked like a danged alligator.”
Sharing drinks with friends and family in Jerry’s, Curtis savored the moment.
“I’ve been appreciating it all morning,” he said.
Outside, Malnory couldn’t stop chuckling over the good fortune of a second chance. A little while after his miss, another sturgeon swam into his TV screen. He flung his spear again. The startled sturgeon was on the run and mud and water swirled. Malnory strained and the fish fought. Kroll, who a day later trumped Malnory with an 80-pounder, gaffed his pal’s fish and the 33-pound, 59-inch fish was captured after a comedic fight.
“Chairs were flying out the door of the shack,” Malnory said.
The spearing was gangbusters all over Lake Winnebago. In two, six-hour sessions, 803 males, 345 juvenile females and a cap-shattering 689 adult females were taken. The Sturgeon General was concerned, but not overly so.
“My gut feeling tells me there won’t be a long-term impact because it’s only one time,” Bruch said.
Even Kuble and Mosher got in on the excitement. A large object slithered across the lake bottom in front of them.
“Throw it!” Mosher shouted.
Kuble hurled the spear. The water turned milky, obscuring sight. A sturgeon? Alas, a miss.
“It looked about 5 feet long,” Kuble said. “Unbelievable.”
Still, the men were pumped to see a sturgeon somewhere besides Jerry’s Tavern. And in the retelling, their elusive fish grew from 5 feet to 8 feet to 14 feet.
It was a very tall tale, and everyone knew it, but no matter. For the first time, Mosher and Kuble had a sturgeon story of their own to tell.
