Wild Rose State Fish Hatchery
Fishing Wisconsin
Hatchery information
Wild Rose is a reliable workhorse that's been delivering fishing fun and enhancing and restoring fish populations in Wisconsin for more than a century. Wild Rose State Fish Hatchery grows more trout and salmon than any other, producing musky, sturgeon, and walleye to test anglers statewide.
Hatchery hours
Visitor Center Hours: The Visitor Center is open April through October from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Summer hours include Sundays and holidays: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Memorial Day through Labor Day and open on three summer holidays: Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day
The Education Center is closed Monday and Tuesday, except for the open summer holidays. Please call at least three weeks ahead to schedule group tours for up to 30 people.
IN-PERSON GROUP TOURS ARE AVAILABLE BY APPOINTMENT: April through October on Wednesday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Please call or email at least three weeks ahead to schedule a time for your group tour. Our classroom can accommodate groups of up to 30 people. If you have a larger group, please plan to split your group and visit two times.
To schedule Group Tours of 10 or more, email or call three weeks in advance: Jesse Landwehr or Sam Stafslien.
CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC: November through March.
SPECIAL EVENTS: Free family activities, including fish printing on t-shirts, learning to cast, fly rod casting, learning to identify your catch and fish games for all ages.
- SPRING STURGEON CELEBRATION: Held on the first Saturday in May.
- FALL FISH MIGRATION: Celebrate the Annual Fall Salmon Migration at Wild Rose Hatchery Education Center on the last Saturday in October, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., with fish games and activities for all ages. Swim upriver like salmon on their migration journey to spawning areas. Kids can learn to cast and identify fish. Other fish activities include printing on tote bags, building a spinner, making and taking Kool-Aid clay fish, and viewing 8-year-old brown trout in the original 1908 hatchery. Guided tours meet in the Education Center between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Carry-In, carry-out
We invite you to enjoy a picnic on the hatchery grounds, but please plan to take out what you bring in.
Hatchery location
N5871 State Rd 22
Wild Rose WI 54984
Visiting
What can I do at the hatchery?
There's a lot to do at Wild Rose! Come and see the new Wild Rose Hatchery Education Center, where you'll find two large aquariums, interpretive displays, activities, and games that help tell the story of the fish hatchery then and now.
You can also peek at hatchery production from the coldwater (trout and salmon) observation room, then stroll down to the historic village where Wild Rose first began, and fish still swim in the raceways.
Pack a picnic lunch and enjoy the scenery in the historic village, a tradition since the early 1900s.
Fish production
With the completion of the new cold-water facilities, Wild Rose is currently producing brown trout, Chinook and coho salmon. The cool water facilities produce northern pike, walleye, lake sturgeon and great lakes spotted musky.
Stocking
Wild Rose State Fish Hatchery is critical to Wisconsin's $2.75 billion sport fishery. The hatchery is particularly important to great Lake Michigan fishing; 100 percent of the coldwater fish (trout and salmon) raised at Wild Rose are stocked into the big pond. Lake Michigan has been considered a "world-class" fishery, and thanks to the renovations of Wild Rose, we can be confident that it will live up to its reputation.
Cool facts
- Year in and year out, Wild Rose produces more than 2 million trout and salmon for stocking and
- It's one of only three hatcheries to raise both cold and cool-water fish.