Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. So the saying goes — but if you take him to a fish hatchery in Wisconsin, he’ll find enough fish to feed a city. So where do they come from, where do they go, and why?
According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the state brings in roughly 3.8 billion dollars annually from fishing. This revenue includes everything from license sales to necessary gear and tackle. Wisconsin is also ranked #3 as a nonresident fishing destination in the country, with roughly 300,000 out of state licenses sold each year. So with all these hopeful anglers hitting the water, there better be something for them to catch.
Among some of the more popular species that are stocked in lakes Monona, Kegonsa, and Waubesa are walleye and muskellunge or “muskie,” while smaller bodies of water and streams are more often stocked with brown trout, brook trout and rainbow trout.
Walleye far exceed other species in numbers stocked, and if you’ve caught a walleye in any of the aforementioned lakes, it likely originated from the Lake Mills Hatchery.
“We can hold up to 1.3 million walleye fingerlings here,” explained DNR Fisheries Technician Ben Pfaff. “Through environmental statutes, we collect specimens from the wild and spawn them on site. We hatch the eggs here and only take enough from the wild to meet the quotas set for stocking.”
Walleye in the Madison chain
Fingerlings are young fish. For walleye, they start at as little as an inch long, and are classified as either “small” or “large” fingerlings. Walleye are typically released as small fingerlings and in sums reaching into the six figures.
For example, in 2022, there were 65,507 walleye averaging 1.46 inches stocked in Lake Waubesa and 263,546 walleye averaging 1.52 inches stocked in Lake Mendota. In 2023, 118,092 walleye averaging 1.28 inches were stocked in Lake Kegonsa. According to DNR biologist David Rowe, there is a good reason for this.
“Releasing them in larger numbers when they are that small increases their chances of survival,” Rowe said. “Because they are so small, they make easy prey for larger fish and other predators. There are also other challenges with stocking walleye, one of which is that walleye are not parental like other species. They spray their eggs along the bottom and then leave, meaning that offspring are offered no protection, which causes issues with natural reproduction. The goal though is to have enough of them survive so that there is a considerable population, because walleye are the most popular fish for anglers.”
Dane County muskie
Muskie are also a widely popular fish with both local and out-of-state anglers, and are also frequently stocked, Rowe said. However, they are stocked in smaller numbers at larger sizes. There were 350 10-inch fingerlings stocked in Lake Waubesa in 2022, while in Lake Monona, 900 11-inch fingerlings, 500 9.6-inch fingerlings and 521 12.7-inch yearlings were stocked.
Again, these decisions are all made with the idea of optimal survivability in mind. Muskie, which sport a mouthful of sharp teeth and are rather powerful fish, are sufficiently high up on the food chain by the time they reach the length of about one foot. All muskie stocking in the Madison chain of lakes is paid for privately by Capital City Muskies , which is a donation, grant, and member fee based organization that does guided fishing trips specifically for muskie and northern pike.
“I do guided trips about 200 days out of the year,” explained Jeff Hanson, a professional muskie guide. “But there are no naturally reproducing muskie in the Madison chain of lakes, the water is too silty for it. So if you catch a muskie in one of the lakes, we paid for it to be stocked there.”
Capital City Muskies Stocking Chair Greg Voss said the cost of stocking muskie is roughly $15 to $17 apiece, meaning the aforementioned 1,921 muskie released in Lake Monona last year racked up a bill of $30,100. As of now, there is a tentative order for more muskie intended to be stocked in lakes Monona, Waubesa and Wingra in 2024. Still, with all these fish being released, Voss says that while the number of people fishing for muskie has gone up, the local catch rate decreased by 23% in 2023.
“I think the decrease in catch rate is possibly due to lack of stocking by the state,” said Voss. “What that means for us is we will continue to lobby for an increase in fishing license fees, where the resulting proceeds would then go to fish hatcheries and stocking.”
Stocking Trout
In 2023, brown, brook and rainbow trout were the only other species stocked in Dane County waters, according to the DNR’s stocking database .
Trout are primarily stocked in streams and ponds. In general, trout are not stocked in the larger lakes because they typically prefer colder, moving water.
In Dane County in 2023, the DNR stocked trout in the following locations:
- 2,165 2.8-inch brown trout in Token Creek
- 632 8.6-inch rainbow trout in Token Creek Pond
- 1,137 2.7-inch brown trout in Badger Mill Creek
- 976 8.8-inch rainbow trout in Salmo Pond
- 540 3.7-inch brook trout in Story Creek
- 1,565 3.1-inch brown trout the West Branch of the Sugar River
- 3,635 brown trout in the Sugar River, 2.86 inches
- 100 9.3-inch brown trout and 1,565 3.1-inch brown in Black Earth Creek
- 548 3.1-inch brook trout in Garfoot creek
- 1,379 2.7-inch brown trout in Vermont creek
- 616 8.8-inch rainbow trout in the Kyle and Jeni ponds in Fitchburg, which is exclusively for children to fish in.
Where each species of trout is stocked depends in part on relationships with other trout species in that body of water.
“Brook trout are native to the area, while brown trout were brought from Europe,” explained Rowe. “So when we stock brook trout, we also try to do habitat restoration at the same time. We’re very careful not to stock brook and brown trout in proximity to one another, and typically try to find more isolated streams to release the brook trout in.”
According to an article by Jason G. Freund in the Scientific Fly Angler, the success of the brown trout in Wisconsin’s streams has negatively affected the native brook trout population.
The article sites an experiment where an extensive effort to remove brown trout from the West Fork Kickapoo Watershed resulted in a significant increase in brook trout. That said, many Wisconsinites and other Great Lakes region natives hesitate to refer to brown trout as “invasive,” because, among other reasons since their introduction to the state in 1883 , anglers simply like catching them.
In the end, Wisconsinites love their fishing, as do many others around the country who come here and enjoy days out on the lakes and in the streams in search of the big one or a pan full of fried fish. These fisherman are able to do so in part due to the the DNR and private groups like Capital City Muskies’ work to stock fish in Dane County’s bodies of water.
All statistics for stocking locations and species can be found in Wisconsin’s online fish stocking database .
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