Four people were rescued by the Oshkosh Fire Department after their truck broke through the ice on Lake Winnebago last Saturday on opening day of sturgeon spearing season, which saw more fish harvested than last season. 

At 8:32 a.m., Oshkosh Fire Dispatch on the Winnebago County Scanner reported that there was a truck that went into the lake and that the four people inside the vehicle had gotten out of the water and were in an ice shanty. Later, the dispatcher stated that the group was too afraid to attempt to get off the ice within another vehicle. 

Heather Wehrmann of Pickett was one of the people inside the truck when it went into the water. 

“I can tell you that was the most terrifying thing that ever happened to me in my entire life,” Wehrmann said. “We were just getting out, at 8:05 is I think when we went under. We saw our shack, we were a hundred yards from it.” 

Wehrmann said no one in her group was worried for their safety. They’d started their journey onto the ice by following the recommendations, with their windows rolled down and their seat belts unbuckled. Once they felt that they were in a safe spot, every window was closed with the exception of her husband’s. 

Wehrmann said she pushed her husband’s window down in an attempt to get out. 

“It went down, thank god,” she said. “But then by the time I got out, Lexi was swimming and that’s when I pulled her out. And my husband had Mel, and he broke the window to get her.” 

Wehrmann said she’d been sturgeon spearing for twenty years but would likely never go again. 

“I don’t think there’s ever gonna be another year of this,” Wehrmann said. “That unfortunately ends the sturgeon spearing career [because] I don’t think I can handle the ice again.”

The group said they were about 100 yards from their shack and three quarters of a mile away from the shore when they went in. Lexi Schadeck, also in the truck when it went under, said the police estimated their truck likely went in at a depth of 15 feet. 

The group said they waited over an hour in warm shanties before the rescue boat came but that many on the water took them in and gave Schadeck dry clothes to wear while they waited.

In the first three days of the 2025 sturgeon spearing season, 355 fish have been harvested, which is only 72 less than the entirety of last year’s season. Although the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has reported poor ice clarity, 192 sturgeon have been speared on Lake Winnebago and 163 have been harvested on the Upriver Lakes (Butte des Morts, Winneconne, and Poygan).

The largest fish harvested so far was by Hayley Herzig, who harvested a 180.5-lb and 79.3-inch female sturgeon Saturday morning on opening day, the fourth-largest fish recorded on the Winnebago system.

This season’s harvest cap on Lake Winnebago is 280 juvenile females, 717 females and 1,002 males. On the Upriver Lakes, the cap is 70 juvenile females, 80 females and 250 males.

Spearing on the Lake Winnebago system, which holds one of the largest populations of lake sturgeon in North America, will continue until the harvest caps are met or when the 16-day season ends Feb. 23.