Wisconsin's Geneva Lake is a Midwest anomaly: 135 feet deep, spring-fed and clear as a Finger Lake, with cisco-fattened pike and smallmouth, a walkable 21-mile public shore path, and one of the region's classic hard-water seasons.
Reports current for Friday, October 23
Every one of the 29 Wisconsin waters we cover has a live read this morning. They are all sitting in the middle of the scale today. Water runs 47 F to 62 F. Pressure is holding steady on most of them, so the day comes down to water temperature and wind.
Best right now: Big Green Lake 3/5, Bois Brule River 3/5, Castle Rock Lake 3/5
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
Geneva Lake: 5,401 acres of very clear Walworth County water, 135 feet deep, where smallmouth bass are the abundant game fish.
Wisconsin's 131,939-acre lake on the Fox–Wolf system, with a three-walleye bag and a February sturgeon spearing season.
Wolf River: part of Wisconsin's Winnebago System, where DNR biologists track the spring walleye spawn.
Shawano Lake: a 6,215-acre shallow drainage lake in Shawano County where the DNR rates northern pike abundant and walleye and largemouth common.
Delavan Lake: a 1,906-acre Walworth County lake rebuilt in a long rehabilitation, now under 18-inch limits for walleye and bass.
Pewaukee Lake in Waukesha County: 2,437 acres with a 50-inch muskellunge minimum and two WDNR-listed ramps.
Lake Mendota in Madison: 9,781 acres, ten public landings and its own size limits on walleye and northern pike.
Castle Rock Lake: a 13,955-acre Wisconsin River flowage below Petenwell, with walleye, panfish and Buckhorn State Park's peninsula on its shore.
The Chippewa Flowage in Sawyer County: 14,593 acres of muskie, walleye and panfish water, and the site of Wisconsin's record muskellunge.
Sheboygan: a Lake Michigan harbor town where the DNR stocks chinook, coho, brown trout and steelhead, with two fishing piers at the river mouth.
Green Bay: Lake Michigan's western arm, where walleye have reproduced on their own in the southern bay since stocking ended in 1984.
Turtle-Flambeau Flowage: a 12,942-acre Iron County flowage inside a state scenic waters area, with walleye rated abundant by WDNR.
Petenwell Lake: a 23,173-acre Wisconsin River flowage between Necedah and Nekoosa where walleye draw two-thirds of the spring fishing and white bass most of the rest.
The lower Oconto River: a Green Bay tributary below the Stiles dam, with Great Lakes trout and salmon runs at the mouth and a warmwater fishery.
The Winnebago system's wild corner: Poygan's shallow rushes hold the chain's walleye waves, sturgeon lore and duck-blind mornings.
Lake Wissota: a man-made lake on the Chippewa River northeast of Chippewa Falls, where WDNR rates walleye abundant and muskie common.
Wind Lake: a Racine County lake that Wisconsin DNR lists at 919 acres, with panfish, largemouth, northern pike and walleye common.
Lake Onalaska, Pool 7 of the Mississippi above La Crosse: a backwater of about 9,400 acres where Wisconsin DNR's last survey found largemouth bass, bluegill and yellow perch the most abundant game fish.
Door County’s salmon conveyor: the Kewaunee stacks chinook, coho and steelhead within sight of Lake Michigan’s horizon.
The Wisconsin River impoundment above Prairie du Sac: wild walleye, sauger and smallmouth, fast-growing panfish and a September lake sturgeon season.
The upper Fox River's shallow lake: Puckaway holds northern pike, walleye, bluegill and yellow perch in water only a few feet deep.
Green Lake: 7,920 acres and 236 feet deep, with stocked lake trout, cisco and a dense smallmouth population.
A clear, 90-foot Sawyer County lake where WDNR manages muskellunge, stocked walleye, smallmouth and a cold-water cisco layer.
The Namekagon runs smallmouth and trout through the St. Croix wilderness, a national scenic riverway.
Bois Brule River: 44 spring-fed miles inside the Brule River State Forest, with lake-run steelhead, salmon and browns from Lake Superior.
A Wisconsin-Michigan boundary river that reaches Green Bay at Marinette, with spring walleye runs, fall brown trout and a catch-and-release sturgeon season.
The lower Chippewa: five hydropower flowages, then 61 free-flowing miles from Eau Claire to the Mississippi that WDNR says hold 70% of the state's fish species.
Kickapoo River: a 130-mile Driftless Area river whose middle reach WDNR classifies as trout water and whose lower reach holds warmwater game fish.
A spring-fed river through River Falls with 25 miles of Class 1 trout water, which the WDNR ranks among the densest brown trout fisheries in the country.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: April.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
Wisconsin gave the world muskie fishing (the record books run through Hayward) and keeps giving: the northwoods' flowages and clear lakes hold dense populations, Green Bay grows the giants, and the Menominee system feeds trophy water in every direction. Add Sturgeon Bay's world-class smallmouth, driftless spring creeks in the southwest, and deep clear lakes like Geneva with their two-story fisheries, and Wisconsin quietly covers every freshwater game there is.
May-June: smallmouth shallow everywhere (Door County is world-class), walleye river runs done, muskies opening north. Summer: weed-edge muskies, evening walleye, panfish for the pan. Fall: the sucker-and-jerkbait muskie hunt for the year's biggest fish, Green Bay trophies included. Winter: sturgeon spearing on Winnebago: the most Wisconsin sentence in fishing.
Yes: a public footpath rings all 21 miles, a legal easement dating to the 1800s. Dawn shore anglers cover prime breaks most boats never slow down for.