Southerner Stalks Sturgeon

A pan fisherman at heart, I love the fight of big bass, beautiful walleye, and redfish. I have never focused on many other species until the past couple of years. Often asked about my bucket list, I receive surprised looks when I’d shrug my shoulders and say I didn’t really have one. Finally after listening to the fish tales of my friends and coworkers, I started putting together my own list and I have to admit, it does make the sport a little more exciting and trip planning a little more fun. I now strategize on which types of fish I can catch and which types of bait and gear I should use to lure them in.

In 2012, I knocked several species off of my bucket list. It was a year of a 20lb king salmon, an 8lb brown trout, my first yellow perch, 6lb northern pike, sheephead, black drum, and even a sculpin, which is a pretty tiny fish. Even after I caught the “bucket list bug,” I remained an open water angler and didn’t step foot on a frozen lake until late December–after which I’ve now made a separate ice fishing bucket list.

With another exciting year planned, I’m kicking off 2013 in pursuit of the mother of all fish, and the number one prize on my hard water list. My primary target: sturgeon. During the second week of February, I’ll be attending the Woman on Winnebago media event and the Sturgeon Stampede Festival on Lake Winnebago in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. I’ve been waiting for this for quite some time. The state of Wisconsin has a very limited number of sturgeon permits that they offer each year. I am the lucky owner of one of those permits, having applied for mine in October. The closest I’ve come to a Sturgeon is the aquarium at Cabelas in Rogers, Minnesota. Hopefully that will change in February.

The notion of ice fishing is very intriguing. I’m a southern angler and until recently, my only knowledge of ice fishing was watching Grumpy Old Men. I have to admit, I’m still a little anxious when I’m standing on a lake, lying over a hole, site fishing, or sitting in a Frabill ice house with a heater near my feet. We just don’t have ice like that in Arkansas and my instincts tell me to stay on shore.

The Women on Winnebago event is more than an ice fishing trip, it’s the opportunity to experience a culture and a way of life that is foreign to me. I’ll be attending the annual Sturgeon Stampede festival. The festival offers an ice kiting event, windsurfers, skating, broomball, ice bowling, ice sailing and sturg-o-rama. For more information about the festival, visit the Sturgeon Stampede website.

The Fond Du Lac Tourism Bureau has built a website featuring the Women on Winnebago event. To read blogs and stories from participants of the event, visit the site at http://wow.wwocz.net/.

Dena Woerner

Dena Woerner is the president of Argia Media, LLC and a strategist for Traditions Media, LLC. She is the former Tourism Division Communications Director for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism where she was the editor of state tourism publications, blogs and web content. Dena is a published outdoor freelance writer and editor. She plans and organizes fishing industry writer's events and photo shoots. She has been published in the River Management Journal, Arkansas Wild, North American Fisherman, and in National Wildlife Federation publications, to name a few. She has appeared in Outdoor Life photo essays, Sporting Clays magazine, and has been a featured guest on episodes of Midwest Outdoors, Illinois Outdoors,Wisconsin Outdoors and local Arkansas television fishing segments. She is a former culinary and hospitality & tourism instructor. An avid cyclist, she competes in woman's crosscountry cycling events. Dena holds a B.A. in Marketing form the University of Arkansas, a M.A. in Professional Communication from Purdue University and is Certified in Tourism Crisis Communications from the University of Florida.