Walleye Stocking Update

February 22, 2026

Unfortunately, the latest walleye stocking update is not good news.

While HFRLA members and the community did their part in supplying the matching donations required to fund the stocking this past fall, there are no extended growth walleyes available in the strain required to get a DNR permit to stock our lakes. The current plan will be to complete an extended growth walleye stocking in Fall of 2027.

The Upper Mississippi-Wisconsin strain minnows from the DNR that would have been shipped to Klug’s fish farm last spring had a false positive on the 1-Day Test for VHS, or Viral Hemorrahagic Septicemia, a highly contagious and deadly virus that affects freshwater fish. The more accurate 28-Day test results were negative for VHS, but by time those results came in, most of the minnows had been destroyed and were no longer available to grow into extended growth walleye.

The DNR gave us a list of other sources, and we did our due diligence by calling each of them. But given that the only known supply of the very specific strain of minnows required were destroyed, there were no fish available to anyone in Fall 2025. We were aware of this by late July, but there was still a very slim chance that some genetic testing that the DNR was doing would have allowed some available fish to be stocked. Unfortunately, that slim chance fell through by late September.

We’ve been working closely with Eric Wegleitner of the Wisconsin DNR on all of the walleye stocking, and he has been helpful so far. The DNR will do a small fry walleye stocking on High, Fishtrap, Rush lakes again in June of 2026 as they have been doing on even-numbered years. That means they would not support or approve a permit for extended growth walleye in Fall 2026, so we will wait until Fall 2027 to do extended growth walleye stocking.

Thanks to everyone for continuing to support these efforts and we will keep you posted on anything we learn over the next couple of years.

 

DNR Fish Survey Fall 2025

The DNR conducted a survey on September 10th and 11th on High, Fishtrap, and Rush lakes with the following preliminary results for 1 year and younger walleyes.

Less than 1 year walleye (natural reproduction)

  • High Lake: 2 total in 7.4 miles of shoreline or 0.3 per mile.
  • Fishtrap Lake: 2 total in 5.7 miles of shoreline or 0.4 per mile

Age 1 year walleye (from DNR stocking in June ‘24 or natural reproduction)

  • High Lake: 6 total in 7.4 miles of shore or 0.8 per mile.
  • Fishtrap Lake: 0 total in 5.7 miles of shoreline or 0.0 per mile.

Walleye 11-17” (assumed to be from Fall ‘23 stocking)

  • High Lake: 42 total in 7.4 miles of shore or 5.7 per mile.
  • Fishtrap Lake: 11 total in 5.7 miles of shoreline or 2.0 per mile.

Musky

  • 1 musky on High Lake and 6 on Fishtrap Lake
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