VHS is Winnebago chain.

[Wade Joseph]

This can't be good. Remember people, dump your minnows at the landing.(I dump mine in the lot so the seagulls can eat them) Drain your livewells and bait wells.

The deaths last week of hundreds of sheepshead in Lake Winnebago and Little Lake Butte des Morts signal the presence of a virus responsible for massive fish kills in Lakes Erie and Ontario, a state official said.

In a development that surprised Wisconsin natural resources officials, the virus was confirmed in the water of the Lake Winnebago system of lakes along the Fox River.

It can kill many other fish species in the chain of lakes, even threatening the population of ancient sturgeon that thrive there, said Sue Marcquenski, fish health specialist with the state Department of Natural Resources.

The unchecked spread of the virus throughout Wisconsin waterways threatens the state's $2.3 billion sport fishing industry, which supports more than 26,000 jobs in the state.

The Lake Winnebago system supports North America's largest self-sustaining population of lake sturgeon and boasts the world's oldest program to manage their population, which began in 1903.

"We didn't expect to find the virus in the Winnebago system first," she said. "We expected to find it in Lake Michigan first.

"Our main concern is that this virus has caused infections in so many other species, too, from bass to perch to muskies, northern pike, walleyes and shad," she said. "In the next one, two or three summers, we could lose much of those fish in the Winnebago system."

DNR Fisheries Director Mike Staggs asked anglers and boaters to help stop the spread of the virus to other lakes.

"This is a major fish health crisis," Staggs said Saturday. "We have to take aggressive steps now and enlist the help of the public to stop this spread.

[Nate McVey]

Wade, will you post that in the Duluth forum as well please. Very scary!

[Wade Joseph]

Done