On Valentine’s Day, a Wisconsin ice fisherman named James Gishkowsky speared a large sturgeon by way of an ice gap on Lake Winnebago. Based on the Wisconsin Division of Pure Assets (WDNR), the fish weighed a whopping 177.3 kilos and measured 79.9 inches in size or 6.6 toes. The feminine sturgeon is the seventh-largest fish ever taken with a spear within the Lake Winnebago system.
In a press launch shared with Discipline & Stream, the WDNR known as Gishkowsy’s sturgeon an “F4 fish”, that means it was filled with as much as 30 kilos of eggs and would have spawned within the spring. Gishkowsky informed Fox 11 that he needed to name for assist with a purpose to hoist the enormous fish from the opening he’d augured by way of the ice. “It’s a rush if you get one thing like this,” he mentioned. “It’s as soon as in a lifetime.”
Gishkowsky’s fish was a lake sturgeon—a prehistoric, bottom-dwelling species that first appeared on earth across the time the dinosaurs went extinct. The species is characterised by its heavy, torpedo-shaped physique and thick armor organized in 5 rows alongside its flanks and again. In Wisconsin, lake sturgeon inhabit the Mississippi, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior Drainage basins.
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The Lake Michigan basin accommodates the Lake Winnebago system, which was the place Gishkowsky speared his monster sturgeon final week. Based on the WDNR, the Lake Winnebago system is residence to one in every of North America’s largest lake sturgeon populations, and it’s one of many few locations on the planet with a wintertime spearfishing season for sturgeon.
The primary trendy sturgeon spearing season kicked off again in 1932, and the custom has remained robust ever since. Whereas there’s no residency requirement for spearfishing for Winnebago lake sturgeon, a lot of the taking part anglers reside inside 60 miles of the lake.
