Curious sturgeon could be the key

LAKE WINNEBAGO - Has your curiosity ever got the best of you?

For sturgeon spearers heading out for next weekend's opening day, a sturgeon's curiosity may be your key to hauling in that trophy size fish. The secret to success may be the sturgeon decoy, which is a vital tool used by spearer's that appeals to a sturgeons curious behavior.

Decoy types are unlimited as long as they don't involve any lights or hooks.

The most common decoy is a brightly colored sturgeon replica.

With sturgeon always looking for food, biologists say the decoy is very important if you want to land that big scale tipper this season.

"A lot of the decoys that people use, the ones that are fish, they actually are made so that when you pull up on the decoy, the decoy actually swims around in the water," said Ron Bruch, a Winnebago Sturgeon Biologist with the Wisconsin DNR. "That will enhance it's attractiveness to the sturgeon or whatever else is out there. But I've seen everything out there from washing machine agitators to bowling balls. A real favorite one is is a white coffee cup. The story goes that the sturgeon like to stick there nose right in the end of that white coffee cup."

Your chances of tagging a sturgeon are slightly increased this season.  Last year, the cap numbers were 350 for juvenile females, 630 for adult females, and 1000 for males.

This season, the DNR has increased the cap total for adult females to 740, which brings the total to 2090 sturgeon.