After a mile of travel east through drifts and over tire-packed trails, we reach McAloon’s spearing shanty, one of 3,171 on the lake today. The sky is overcast, the winds are gusty and the temperature is 27 degrees.

“The heater will take an edge off,” says McAloon, opening the door to the 5-by-7 foot aluminum shanty. A wooden-handled spear hangs from the 7-foot high ceiling, connected to a neatly coiled rope.

Part of the floor is covered with carpet, the rest - a bathtub-sized hole - allows access to the lake. The depths of Winnebago glow green into the darkened shack. It’s here, on one of nature’s best big screens, that we’ll direct our attention over the next 6 hours, hoping to see a sturgeon swim past.

Water clarity is good this year; the bottom, 11 feet down, is easily visible.

McAloon hangs two sets of decoys into the water. One is a hand-carved, hand-painted sturgeon replica about 24 inches long. The other is a tandem of coffee cans - Folgers and Hills Bros. - joined by a wooden dowel. When it comes to sturgeon decoys, you don’t ask why.

McAloon and I sit on straight-back wooden chairs and begin the spearer’s vigil. It’s one unknown to most outdoors people in North America.

Thanks to skilled management by the Department of Natural Resources and exemplary support from conservation groups around the lake, Winnebago holds a strong population of sturgeon and supports an annual spear fishing season.

“These fish are precious,” says McAloon, a director of Sturgeon For Tomorrow and the Otter Street Fishing Club, two of the many groups that work to conserve the fishery. “It’s part of our culture around the lake and we need to make sure it’s here for generations to come.”

Gusts of wind whistle around the shanty and through cracks in the floor.

For McAloon, 68, this is his 50th season of spearing. Time and life experience has provided him a unique perspective on the Winnebago sturgeon population.

From the Great Depression through the 1950s, local residents - including McAloon’s father - would set up spring sturgeon camps on the Wolf River and harvest spawning sturgeon.

“It was a way of life,” said McAloon. “Times have changed.”

Skim ice forms periodically over the hole; we clear it with a net. At 9 a.m. we see our first fish of the day - a 2-foot gar, bearing the characteristic thin snout and black spotted tail. It fins lazily past the sturgeon decoy and out of sight.

A retired teacher, McAloon also had the opportunity to travel to Lake Baikal in Russia with a group of educators. The sturgeon population there has been devastated by poaching.

The lake sturgeon population in the Winnebago system has been improving over the last 15 years as the result of a series of regulation changes designed to maintain the annual harvest at a safe level.

The big fish create an excitement that is hard to match. McAloon said he used to live in Montana and hunt big game, but those experiences pale in comparison to seeing a sturgeon under the ice.

Sturgeon are prized for their eggs, which can be used to make caviar, and for their firm flesh.

According to a 2007 DNR estimate, the Winnebago system had a sturgeon population of 11,000 adult females and 25,000 adult males.

The winter spear season results in an average harvest of 1,400 fish and annual economic impact of more than $3 million to the Winnebago region, according to state statistics.

At 11:30 a.m., there are shouts from a nearby shack. It’s Mike McDowell of Van Dyne, a friend of McAloon’s fishing 50 yards away, and he’s pulled a 55-pounder out onto the ice.

“That’s a start,” said McAloon.

The remaining hour of spearing hours winds down, with just a few perch swimming beneath the shanty. We will not tag a sturgeon today.

Others had different luck. According to Ron Bruch, fisheries biologist with the DNR, 806 sturgeon were harvested Saturday, including 333 adult females, 126 juvenile females and 347 males. Three of the adult females weighed in excess of 150 pounds. The largest was 78.5 inches and 162.5 pounds, speared by Matt Johannes of Berlin

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