Every year the sturgeon move up the Wolf River to spawn and every year the sturgeon guard heads out to make sure the ancient fish make it safely.
Volunteers sign up prior to the spawn, which usually occurs in April. The volunteers choose a day with the hopes that the sturgeon will actually be spawning on that day. Volunteers are notified by 7 pm the evening before their registered shift, if they will or will not be needed. The DNR, the conservation wardens, and the previous days volunteers help determine if volunteers are needed throughout the spawning season.
Connecting Our Waters signed up to participate in sturgeon guard in 2019 to see what it was all about and to, obviously, protect the spawning sturgeon. We arrived at sturgeon camp a few minutes after 9 am on April 29th, 2019. The organizers had a delicious breakfast spread for the volunteers as well as materials to make our own lunch. Most people we spoke with were from the Winnebago system and volunteered their time to make sure there is still a reproducing sturgeon population in Wisconsin.
Unbeknownst to us, most people sign up in at least pairs of two, if not as a family. We ended up being partnered with another single registered volunteer. Our partner, Jack, is a veteran sturgeon guarder who lives along the shores of the Winnebago system. We were tasked with checking three different sites along the Wolf River with the intention of seeing if sturgeon were still moving up the river. The sturgeon guard organizers believed that April 29th may have been the last day for the spawning run.
Connecting Our Waters first stop was Riverside Tavern, outside of Clintonville, along the Embarrass River. There were two rip rap areas along the river there, where sturgeon can be seen spawning. Unfortunately for us, the sturgeon had moved further north of this site and we did not see any. We stayed here for about two hours with the hopes of seeing any stragglers making their way up the Wolf River.
At the same time we were at Riverside Tavern, our partner Jack was over at the Highway 156 Bridge, also along the Embarrass River. While he was at that the site, he saw some sturgeon porpoising but most of them had moved on from the site.
We then headed up to the State Highway 22 Wayside in Shawano. This site is historically a spawning location for sturgeon but when the warden swung by to check on us, he mentioned that he hadn’t really seen fish spawning at the site but that the habitat was right for them.
Jack and I did a walk-through of the site and then returned to his car to get out of the rain and cold while we ate lunch. But, not before we saved a robin that was stuck to a branch due to some discarded fishing line. We ended up chatting for a while about lakes around the state and water quality related problems.
Since I hadn’t seen any sturgeon up until this point, Jack said he would cover our site so I could head up to the Shawano Dam to see the still spawning sturgeon.
I ended up chatting with a couple of the other sturgeon guards posted at the dam as well as people visiting to see the sturgeon. One of the couples I spoke to drove hours just to come over and see the ancient fish.
After taking some pictures, I headed back to our post. Jack then took his turn to go see the sturgeon spawning. While he was gone, I walked around the site and picked up as much trash as I could. The Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance clean-up had just taken place, so my car was chalk full of supplies for a mini clean-up. I, also, spent some time taking pictures of the skunk cabbage that was in bloom.
Around 5 o’clock, Jack and I headed back to our morning sites to do one more check before the day ended. We met back at Sturgeon Camp around 7 to return our supplies and have some dinner.
Overall, it was an educational and exciting day to be a part of! We hope our program can be a regular volunteer of this program. We couldn’t believe the number of people willing to *possibly* volunteer their time to help protect these majestic fish.
Learn more about the program here: https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/sturgeon/sturgeonguard.html
Cover photo courtesy of the Wisconsin DNR flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/widnr/
For more information on Connecting Our Waters, contact Emily at emily@fwwa.org
