Have spear, will wait--and wait--for sturgeon : They huddle in a shed on frozen Lake Winnebago, staring at a hole in the ice. The quick and lucky hunters are rewarded.

Gordie Faust stared recently at the decoy on the bottom of ice-covered Lake Winnebago on the first day of sturgeon-spearing season, diligently waiting to see if one of the dinosaur-era fish would swim by his hole this year.

He did not appear to be concerned. Last year, after 20 years of pulling his wooden fishing shanty onto the frozen lake, cutting a 4-by-4-foot hole into the ice and staring into the fluorescent green square of water for hundreds of hours, Faust speared his first sturgeon.

“It felt wonderful,” he said, describing the sensation of hauling in the fish, which measured 53 inches long and weighed 39 pounds. “I had seen some before, but I guess I just wasn’t that good at spearing.”

Skill sometimes has less to do with the success or failure of a sturgeon spearer than timing and luck. Some would-be spearers have gone five years or more without even seeing a sturgeon. Others have filled their quota of one in about five minutes.

Farther south on this 138,000-acre lake, another spearer was at Wendt’s Marine waiting for his sturgeon to be weighed and measured, barely two hours into the 19-day season. “I didn’t even have time to sit down,” he said. “We cut the ice, lit the heater, set up the lights and were putting the decoy in the water when it swam by.”

Such is life for the hardy men and women who pay $10 for a spearing license and the chance to haul in a sturgeon.

It is a ritual that many people would find odd, or downright crazy. Why would anyone willingly sit inside a cramped shanty while the swirling wind outside drives the chill factor to 50 degrees below zero? And why would anyone put up with the monotony of keeping eyes riveted to one spot, not knowing if there will ever be the chance to grab the pitchfork-like spear and plunge it into the unsuspecting prey?

Maybe it is due to the limited opportunity, since this is the only lake in Wisconsin where sturgeon spearing is allowed every year. It could be the challenge of trying to beat the odds, which to some spearers must seem like those of winning a lottery. Or it simply could be the tradition of hunting in a state that also has wild turkey and black bear seasons.

Whatever the reasons, more than 15,000 people bought licenses so they could take a stab this year at the estimated 40,000 to 50,000 legal-size sturgeon that inhabit the lake.

“This is a unique population of sturgeon,” said Dennis Jones, a game warden supervisor for the state Department of Natural Resources. “It is probably the only one of this kind as far as numbers.” The lake sturgeon, also known as rock sturgeon, are not as abundant elsewhere.

The grayish-black fish is considered a trophy-size catch if it weighs more than 100 pounds. That is more than double the weight of the average sturgeon taken during a spearing season.

Length is the crucial measurement of a sturgeon, since a spearer can be fined more than $2,000 for stabbing one that is less than the 45-inch minimum. This adds to the difficulty, because the spearer must wait for a legal-size sturgeon to appear and then react in a matter of seconds.

Decoys can improve the odds of attracting the fish because “sturgeon are real nosy” said Jim Zitzelsberger, a former ice fisherman. Some decoys, like the one Faust was using, are made to look like other fish. This would seem natural. But many sturgeon spearers do things differently.

Zitzelsberger said some people are convinced that the fish are attracted by unusual objects. That is why one spearer uses a model airplane as a decoy. Another uses a wine bottle.

Spearers cannot control two elements that have the most impact on whether they will be successful--water clarity and ice conditions. Water clouded by the effects of algae blooms in the lake can make it difficult to see the fish. Unstable ice can make it too risky to drive onto the lake.

Officials said it was clear enough in 1995 to see the bottom of the lake in 20 feet of water. That contributed to a record sturgeon harvest this year of 3,175 fish. But not all years are as good. Only eight sturgeon were taken in both 1969 and 1973. The average catch for a year is about 725.

Some of the sturgeon speared in Lake Winnebago contain caviar. But most are just fish that provide a lot of meat for those who like the taste.

“Some people smoke it,” Faust said. “I baked the one I got. And it tasted real good.”