Ride 7 - Fish Camp

The east end of the South Yahara Trail. 5/23/25 dwm

It was a beautiful day starting my four-day holiday weekend. After helping at Brat Fest four hours in the morning, I went home to change into bike gear and headed east.

It was a simple ride, I went east until I reached 25 miles, then turned around, covering the same ground going the other way.

The one-way ride stopped a quarter-mile from the entrance to Lake Kegonsa State Park. It's a quiet stretch of road less than a football field from the lake and within view of another osprey's nest (photo below).

 It was a couple tenths over 50 miles when I stopped to open the garage door to park the bike.

An osprey nest with a pole-top view. 5/23/25 dwm

 While I've gone down these paths several times this year; I hadn't taken time to learn about Fish Camp Park which sits on the northwest corner of Lake Kegonsa.

 The fish camps were developed to combat carp. European settlers brought carp with them in 1880 and as an invasive species there was no natural predator to keep what was soon called a rough fish, carp took over quite a few Wisconsin lakes and rivers.

 The camp here was one of several established by the Wisconsin Conservation Department (later it became the Department of Natural Resources) in 1934. 

Using a seine net to gather carp into holding pens, they were either shipped to other lakes or put on ice and sent to market. 

The corn house. 5/23/25 dwm

Carp sold at market were used as Geflite, according to Google, a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dish made of carp, whitefish, or pike, seasoned and poached in a flavorful broth. Other carp were used as fertilizer or animal feed.

The camps started during the Great Depression and continued until 1969 when the expense exceeded the benefit gained by removing carp.

The story boards on the sides of two remaining buildings described working in a fish camp as tough and exhausting work but provided good pay.

The net house. 5/23/25 dwm

 

Catching fish with a net isn't scientific. The crews had to sort through the catch and return sport fish to the lake. They would work year-round and travel to other lakes.

 

 The caught carp were kept in holding pens until they could be moved from the lake by train to their final destination. 

 

 That's why there is a corn house at camp, it's where milk cans filled with kernels were stored to feed the fish before being sent to market.

 

 In winter, the crew would cut holes in the ice and thread a net using holes in the ice to surround fish then tighten it around the catch.

 

The Yahara River empties into Lake Kegonsa. 5/23/25 dwm

 As a kid, when dad and I went fishing we sometimes tried catching carp because they were big and exciting to catch and the Department of Natural Resources encouraged anglers to remove rough fish from state water.

 

The carp the camps were dedicated to removing aren't the enemy a new species presents. 

 

Asian carp can get around water barriers and can jump out of the water, sometimes slamming into people fishing. These fish may require special efforts to remove them for Wisconsin fisheries. 

If you live in south Wisconsin, the Dane county Fish Camp Park is south of McFarland off County Highway AB before it crosses the Yahara River. It's a perfect place to park if you want to walk or ride the boardwalk above the wetlands.