Green Lake Fish Rearing Facility

History

In December 2006, the Green Lake Sanitary District (GLSD) purchased the Green Lake County Fish Rearing Facility. The Green Lake Association formed a partnership with GLSD and others including Green Lake County, Walleyes for Tomorrow, local fishing Guides and the City of Green Lake to help manage the fish rearing facility. This partnership ensures that fish will remain available for stocking Big Green Lake, thus protecting sport fishing on the lake.

Since acquiring the fish rearing facility, these partners have been busy making improvements and upgrades to keep the facility in top working order for many years to come. 

The entire building structure protecting the eight trout raceways has been demolished, and a new structure constructed in July 2007. The new structure should have a useful life of between 25 and 50 years.  Labor and materials for the new structure were donated by the Wisconsin DNR and most of the building came from recycled materials. For example, the roof trusses came from timbers pulled from the Radley Creek and milled into trusses at State-owned saw mills.

Other improvements to the fish rearing facility included: new electrical wiring throughout the facility, new and improved drainage system for the raceways and ponds, general safety upgrades throughout the property, and other general improvements to the grounds and other structures currently used for storage.

In addition to raising trout and walleyes for many years to come, the fish rearing facility partners are also looking at ways to make the facility more accessible to the public as well as to educate the public about the fisheries of Big Green Lake.  

Interested in a tour? Saturday morning tours are sometimes available in the spring and fall. Check out our calendar of events for more detailed information.

Fish Stocking

Every year 20,000 - 25,000 fish ranging from seven to eight months old travel from various fish rearing facilities throughout Wisconsin and arrive at the Green Lake Fish Rearing Facility. This number is determined by the WI DNR and is based upon what the DNR thinks the lake and the fish rearing facility can support. In 2010, nearly 21,000 lake trout and 2,500 northern pike were stocked in Green Lake. Historically, brown trout have been a stocked fish species, but were not stocked in 2010 due to recent concerns of VHS, a deadly fish virus categorized as an aquatic invasive species. View all previous fish stocking data from 1972-2010.

Additional efforts have been made to help improve Green Lake's fishery by reducing Green Lake's carp population. Certain indicators suggest that the carp population may be declining in Green Lake. Each year, the Green Lake Sanitary District works with commercial fishermen to harvest carp from Green Lake. In 2000, there were 67, 220 lbs. of carp removed. Since then, commercial fishermen experienced a decline in their total pounds of harvested carp. In 2009, commercial fishermen were only able to harvest 20, 500 lbs. In the past 12 years, 713, 388 lbs. of carp have been removed from Big Green Lake!

The Green Lake Fish Rearing Facility is maintained by the Green Lake Sanitary District staff. Financial support is given by the partners of the fish rearing facility, including the Green Lake County, City of Green Lake, Green Lake Association, Walleyes for Tomorrow, Wisconsin DNR and Local Fishing Guides. Since 2006, the GLA has supported the Green Lake Fish Rearing Facility with annual monetary donations. Funds raised from our 2010 gala were used to increase our annual donation to the fish rearing facility in support of their efforts.