OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — It’s the second weekend of sturgeon spearing for the Lake Winnebago System and local fishing clubs say ice conditions are great this year.
“We started off really slow because we had some warm weather in January, but with this cold weather that we had ice conditions right now are ideal”, said Don Herman, the Vice President of the Otter Street Fishing Club.
As temperatures finally begin to warm up, Herman describes the current conditions.
“We have 20 inches of ice pretty much around the whole lake. You need a four wheel drive to get around. Once you get off the road, it’s two or three foot drifts. It’s really good this year”, Herman said.
As spearers will continue to head out to the lake these next few days, he says conditions should still remain very well.
“We’re going to have a good another week or two weeks even if it gets to 40 there’s a lot of snow that protects the ice”, Herman said.
Looking ahead he says it will probably be a little longer before they start to bring down the bridges on the lake.
“We normally take our bridges off around March 12th through March 15th and unless we get some really warm weather that will probably stay the same”, Herman said.
One man with the Quinney Fishing Club stressed the importance of continuously monitoring conditions.
“It changes daily, hourly, minutely, I mean it changes often”, said Mark Ecker.
Herman goes on to say that wherever you see a tree laying around the ice, that’s a signal of danger.
“The ice is never 100 percent safe. You got to always remember that”, Herman said.
