FOND DU LAC – As people young and old search for sturgeon beneath the ice, just off the shore, the prehistoric fish is leaving its impact.
At the foot of Lake Winnebago and beyond, local businesses are finding ways to celebrate the area’s claim to fish fame, from foam hats to specialty drinks.
Restaurants,packed to the gills
When thousands of shanties spring up on Lake Winnebago and its surrounding waters to create a village on the ice, the restaurants sitting on the lakefront become gathering points, to grab a drink and weigh a sturgeon.
“You cannot help but just be blown away by the impact the season has on restaurants,” said Craig Molitor, president of Destination Lake Winnebago Region, which is hosting the festival Sturgeon Spectacular in conjunction with Fond du Lac Festivals Inc.
One of the restaurants is Wendt’s on the Lake, N9699 Lake Shore Drive, in Van Dyne, where lovers of the season find sturgeon camaraderie, equipment and apparel all under one roof.
Opened in 1962, the Lake Winnebago restaurant’s history is intertwined with sturgeon spearing. Cynthia and Fritz Wendthelped to start the “Sturgeon For Tomorrow” organization, which is focused on protecting the growth of the sturgeon in Lake Winnebago and the Upper River Lakes and celebrating its 40th year in 2020. The restaurant sells memberships to the West Shore Fishing Club, which helps fund the plowing of ice roads, repairs and operation costs.
“To keep it going means a lot to us,” co-owner Ann Wendt-Cross said, who is the granddaughter of Cynthia and Fritz Wendt, andruns the restaurant with her brother, Shawn.
On spearing’s opening day, the restaurant will be packed to the gills from morning to night, as guests drink a special beer called "Spear Beer," Wendt-Cross said. Posters will cover the walls, where participants write their name and the weight of their sturgeon, and, through the restaurant’s multiple pools, have a chance to win money. Last year 1,100 people participated in the pools, which ranged from smallest, largestand first fish caught. A pool given to the person who spears a 200-pound sturgeon rolls over from year to year, and has not been won.
For those looking to up their spearing game, brightly colored fish decoys — used to attract fish in murky waters — hang from the ceiling. To capture the most flirty of fish, one decoy has bright red lipstick and long eyelashes. Spears and gaff hooks are also displayed for sale, as well as Wendt’s can koozies, to keep drinks cool on the ice.
“Half of (the fun) is just being with everybody, and when you get one, it’s worth it. There’s so many people who have been hearing for how many years and never seen one and never got one … and once you get one, you’re hooked,” Wendt-Cross said.
In the crowd, visitors are sure to see many a Wendt’s sweatshirt, made specially for the sturgeon spearing season. Since the early 1990s, the restaurant has sold custom sweatshirts, long-sleeved T-shirts and hats spreading the restaurant’s name far and near.
Each year, the restaurant calls for people to submit designs for the apparel, with customers voting on their favorite. Out of the 13 designs submitted, customers chose the 2020 winner as “Happiness is Blood on the Ice.” Below the saying, the sweatshirt is marked with year and Wendt’s on the Lake's name in a sturgeon design.
On average, five to six dozen sweatshirts are ordered every year, along with dozens of hats. Many people will buy a new sweatshirt each season to add to their collection. One woman recently ordered a 2019 sweatshirt she missed last year, Wendt-Cross said.
Clothing orders come in from all over the United States. During EAA in July, visitors from throughout the world will stop at Wendt’s, learn about sturgeon spearing, and order apparel. On a trip to Jamaica, even, a Wendt’s pullover drew attention from others in the country who had been to the restaurant, Wendt-Cross said.
Sweatshirts show sturgeon pride
All of the sweatshirts are printed through at Hopper’s Silk Screening & All Star Trophy, 77 N. Main St., who also makes the sweatshirts for lakeside restaurants Schmitty’s Bar & Grill, N7044 Winnebago Drive, and Jim and Linda’s Lakeview Supper Club, W3494 Fond du Lac County M, Malone.
The clothing is used to generate interest — and dollars — for the restaurants, Hopper’s owner Dave Hopper said. The printing business works with each to make their own unique product and begins printing them before Christmas so buyers can have them before they step onto the ice.
Items range from sweatshirts, to baseball caps, quarter-zip sweatshirts and winter hats. While Jim and Linda’s says “We Survived the Ice Shoves,” Schmitty’s design includes a sturgeon over two crossed spears with the words “Sturgeon Spearing 2020.” A second Wendt’s design centers around “Spears & Beers.”
“We try to put a spin on them,” Hopper said. “You’re not going to find the same one or even close at another (restaurant).”
Wanting to serve as a partner to restaurants and bars, Hopper’s does not produce its own sturgeon wear to sell. In fact, the only sturgeon spearing shirt the store has in stock is the one they create on behalf of Sturgeon Spectacular. This year’s design features a sturgeon’s head emerging from the water on a white long-sleeve T-shirt.
As well as Hopper’s, the shirts will be available at Sturgeon Spectacular events and the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts, Hopper said.
Although Hopper is not a spearer himself, he goes shack hopping on the lake, visiting family and friends, and making stops at all the bars Hopper’s designed for. Seeing people wearing the apparel his business produced is "rewarding," he said.
A hatabove the rest
Sweatshirts are not the only way sturgeon fanatics show their pride during the season.
Over the past 25 years, Jeff Kahlow has crafted 24,000 hats out of foam to form everything from deer antlers to Green Bay Packers players to McMuffins with his business Big Guy Hats. However, it was the sturgeon which first spurred his business.
When it came time for sturgeon spearing, Kahlow and his friends celebrated the season at Wendt’s on the Lake. At the time, he was beginning to get a “knack for carving foam” and one day wondered what would happen if he made sturgeon, put it on a hat and walked into the lakeside restaurant.
He quickly found out. Whipping one up, he entered Wendt’s with a foam sturgeon on his head, and before the door could even close, everyone was asking where they could buy one, he said. Within 20 seconds, he had sold the few hats he had made, and the owner asked Kahlow if he could make more to sell there.
“I knew I had something going,” he said, and turned his creations into a business outside of his full-time work.
With more than 2,000 different patterns, Kahlow can customize a hat to anything a person wants. Along with hats of Indiana Jones, Miller Parkand blue gills, Kahlow has hand-carved many a sturgeon for both individuals to wear on the ice or shacks, and restaurants around the lake which purchased them by the dozen.
The prehistoric fish is “unique looking” with its long body, and whiskers. Out of polyurethane foam, Kahlow has created 2- to 3-feetsturgeon as well as those that are 5 feet long — some with spears, and others without. Each is airbrushed with water-based enamel paint in “a mix of brown and gray,” before being attached to an adjustable hat with “special foam adhesive glue,” Kahlow said.
Kahlow places his phone number inside of each, so if people ask a person where they got their headwear, all they can refer them to him with the tip of a hat.
“It’s an ugly fish that gets more attention than the standard fish,” he said.
A prehistoric necklace
Another attention-grabber isThe Goldsmith’s eye-catching sturgeon necklace which combines that "ugly" fish with fine jewelry.
Involved with the Sturgeon Spectacular, the 46-year-old business at 177 S. Main St. began making the necklace last year, carrying out the entire process within the downtown store— from design, to model-making to casting, owner Ron Emmanuel said.
The necklace fits right in with The Goldsmith’s other home-inspired jewelry. Along with the sturgeon, the store has an in-the-works walleye ring, as well as Lakeside Park Lighthouse and Lake Winnebago pendants. To add an extra level of customization to the Lake Winnebago necklace, The Goldsmith can place a diamond in a place special to customers along the shoreline, he said.
Offering such jewelry makes The Goldsmith stand apart from other jewelry stores, while paying tribute to what is special about Fond du Lac and the surrounding area, Emmanuel said.
“It’s our town, and we love our town,” Emmanuel said.
Since its introduction last year, people have gone crazy over the sturgeon pendant, with many purchasing it in the silver and gold options, Emmanuel said. Currently, the store has a few necklaces on hand for sturgeon lovers and Sturgeon Spectacular attendees.
“It’s great how local businesses get involved,” Emmanuel said of Sturgeon Spectacular. “I think everyone should pitch in and help make it a special event.”
Businesses offer fishy treats and drinks
Sturgeon Spectacular helps to bring an added layer of vibrancy to downtown, Molitor said, as people walk Main Street and visit businesses taking part in chili crawls, snow sculpting contests or offer their own deals.
Last year, THELMA, which hosts “Guys on Ice,” music and more during the event had 9,000 people come through its doors in February, said Mary Parado, who works with Destination Lake Winnebago Region on public relations for the event.
As Annie’s Fountain City Café kicks off Sturgeon Spectacular at 5:30 p.m.Thursday with a salsa-themed event featuring, special drinks, food, and music from Julito y la Sonora del Valle, guests will see sturgeon season lattes and cookies on the menu.
Three years ago, the taste of snickerdoodle cookies inspired Annie’s staffat 72 S. Main St. to create a latte to match in flavor — the Snickerdoodle Sturgeon Latte. To give it a sturgeon flair, owners Ann and Gary Culver searched for a cookie cutter of the fish, Ann Culver said.
Finding none, Gary Culver suggested using the Fond du Lac Public Library’s 3D printer to create one. Along with the Snickerdoodle Sturgeon latte, Annie’s also created Fondy Frostbite and Ice Shanty Delight lattes.
Just a couple blocks away, Brick House restaurant, 161 S. Main St. will serve up sweet, sturgeon-themed drinks.
Looking to celebrate the sturgeon spearing season in a “fun way,” staff at Brick House created a variety of concoctions and the Bottom Feeder specialty co*cktail rose to the top, becoming the restaurant’s “annual Sturgeon co*cktail,” owner Laurie Baumhardt said. The “cloudy green” drink has a tootsie roll flavor, and a speared “gummy sturgeon” to top it off, she said.
The fun continues at Lakeside Park, where Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery will, on Saturday,provide a beer inspired by the season to Sturgeon Spectacular for a second year.
The brewery turned its eyes towards Fond du Lac as it searched for events to sponsor. Living in the city, regional sales representative AJ Belling saw Sturgeon Spectacular as an option for the brewery to expandand continue its focus on the environment through promoting conservation and doing its part “to help provide sturgeon spearing for another generation,” he said.
As part of the sponsorship, Lakefront Brewery created “Bottom Feeder Ale.” While each year “the beer is a little different,” Belling said, it has a dark color to reflect the life of a sturgeon and the muddy lake bottoms the feast from.
This year, just like the large fish it celebrates, the beer has a “big flavor profile,” which includes tastes of maple-orange, and aged-bourbon soaked cinnamon sticks, and rings in at 10.7% alcohol.
“It’s a little more unique, a little more fun,” Belling said.
Due to the “huge success” of Sturgeon Spectacular in 2019 for the brewery, Lakefront increased its winter sponsorship this year, providing tables, tents, a bar inside the Lakeside Park beer tent and equipment to pour the drink. The beer’s distributor, Lee Beverage, will give tap trailers and beer storage.
The drink’s brewer and other staff will be on-hand to tap at noonSaturday. Since the beer is exclusive to Sturgeon Spectacular, once supplies run out, the beer is gone forever, Belling said.
As people rush to get their taste, Belling reminds customers of the same saying on Lakefront Brewery packing: “Please enjoy our products with all senses — especially common sense.”
Contact Sarah Razner at 920-907-7909 or srazner@gannett.com.Follow her on Twitter @misssarahrazner.
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