White River State Fishery Area
Wild Rivers TU Chapter has officially Adopted the White River State Fishery Area in Bayfield County in January 2025. We will be doing many habitat stream projects along with the WIDNR to enhance and preserve the wonderful White River watershed. WRTU Chapter will be kicking this off in the spring of 2025, so stay tune. Volunteers will be needed to help with the work.
Over the years the Wild Rivers TU Chapter has done numerous habitat projects all over the White River watershed, including the White River State Fishery Area south of Delta, Wisconsin. DNR. The WI-DNR purchased the 1600 acres in 1962.
White River Watershed Trout Sampling Results for 2025
A quick overview of the WI DNR shocking trout results for the White River watershed in 2025.
- 1,316 trout handled, or 8,225 trout per mile, which is our highest overall catch rate this summer (next closest was another south fork station with 3,723 per mile) as well as both our highest brook trout per mile (3,125) and highest brown trout per mile (5,081) that we’ve sampled this year.
- This is the 3rd highest total catch rate we’ve documented (sampled almost annually since 2007) and the highest brook trout catch rate ever (2025 was 3,125 brookies per mile, next closest was 2022 with 2,006 brookies per mile).
- Largest brook trout was 10.6”, largest brown trout was 22.1” (largest trout our crew has seen in a summer survey), and 3 tiger trout handled (biggest was 8.4”).
- 211 trout were given PIT tags, most of which were age-0 and age-1s (2.5” to 6”).
- 55 degree water, so fish recovered well and we only documented 1 mortality from tagging.
