Northwoods Researchers Detail the Facts of Wisconsin's Fish, Fishing

   You likely missed it, but the Northern Highland Fishery Research Area in Vilas County celebrated its 80^thanniversary June 20, making it one of the world’s longest-running fisheries research projects.

   So, let’s blow our kazoos, pop those champagne corks and twirl our kids’ noisemakers to show we support the Department of Natural Resources’ commitment to research and science-based policy-making. Sure, lawmakers often ignore it all in favor of voter-driven folklore and fossilized opinions, but we’re better served when data-driven facts steer and sustain our publicly owned fisheries.

   Vilas County’s fabled research area includes lakes Spruce, Nebish, Pallette, Mystery and Escanaba. Fisheries scientists on the “Escanaba lakes” have conducted and published scores of research projects since 1946, and mandated creel surveys for everyone fishing those waters the past eight decades. These surveys compile detailed data on every fish caught, measured or legally kept, which provides researchers consistent records for tracking fishing trends and the fish that anglers pursue.

   Plus, the DNR makes it easy for anglers to read all those findings by visiting the Northern Highlands’ fishery-research website, https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/research/projects/NHFRA. In March, for example, the DNR published the findings of its Summer 2025 study on forward-facing sonar. To conduct the study, two two-person fishing teams took turns using a Garmin LiveScope modified for open-water use. In addition to the FFS, the teams used identical fishing rods, reels and tackle to target smallmouth bass on Nebish Lake six days per week from May 28 to Aug. 17.

     Ongoing research at the Northern Highland Fishery Research Area in Vilas County is studying how well “fish-sticks” habitat projects like this one in Bayfield County attract fish and boost their populations.     — Patrick Durkin photos

   The teams fished in four-hour shifts from 8 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and swapped the LiveScope between every shift. All told, one team used the device for 22 shifts (88 hours) and the other team for 24 shifts (96 hours).

   The researchers didn’t document anything to indicate FFS threatens the lake’s smallmouth population. The LiveScope did not increase catch rates for either fishing team on Lake Nebish. It did, however, change the anglers’ behaviors, typically causing them to spend more time watching the monitor while searching for fish, particularly in deeper waters, where they caught fewer, but slightly longer smallmouths.

   In February, the researchers also published the results of their research of a “fish sticks” project on Sanford Lake in Vilas County. This study is testing whether “coarse, woody habitat” can improve the lake’s fish populations. CWH projects have been popular across Wisconsin the past 20 years in efforts to enhance fish populations in lakes surrounded by houses and other development.

   The CWH study on Sanford Lake began by documenting the fisheries on this 100-acre lake from 2015 to 2018. The researchers then dragged or dropped 140 full-sized trees into Sanford’s shallows along one-fourth of its shorelines in Summer 2018 to document if and how much the toppled trees attract and produce fish.

     Young smallmouth bass like this have long been abundant in the Escanaba lakes near Boulder Junction.

   The researchers found that the “fish sticks” not only attracted fish, but doubled the fish community’s size over the next five years. Greg Sass, the DNR’s research team leader, said the agency has since added 237 more fallen trees to the lake to see if or how much additional fish sticks boost the fish population. Either way, the DNR will better understand how best to improve fish populations on lakes whose shorelines are increasingly affected by home-building, manicured lawns and other shoreline development.

   The Northern Highlands research also contributed — albeit accidentally — to a sociological test of a longtime sales principle: “Nothing kills bad or overrated products faster than advertising.” This test began with an article by writer Jack Kulpa in the May 1984 issue of Outdoor Life magazine that revealed what “may be the best kept secret in all the North Woods.” That is, Wisconsin’s Escanaba lakes.

   Kulpa claimed a “relative handful of anglers had been catching fish from these secluded lakes” for almost 40 years because their “wild and pristine” waters contain “mind-boggling concentrations of every warm-water gamefish native to the North, as well as lake trout.” Kulpa even claimed a DNR research biologist would “be the first to tell you that, on some days, you can literally catch a fish on every cast.”

   Citing a DNR survey, Kulpa said Nebish Lake held abundant numbers of 3-year-old smallmouth bass measuring 8 inches or longer; specifically 21 smallies per acre. He said when bass action peaks in July and August, individual anglers catch 50 “and even 100” bass daily on leeches and worms in deep water.

   Quoting from the researchers’ records, Kulpa also reported: “One angler caught 40 smallmouths in a single, four-hour period. Another took five largemouths, 10 walleyes and 40 panfish on a summer afternoon. A few savvy individuals have collected mixed creels of bass, walleyes, muskies and perch totaling well over 200 fish!”

   Kulpa added this exclamation point: “As one of the project’s field technicians put it, ‘Anyone who can bait a hook can catch fish on these lakes.’”

   Kulpa’s article appeared in late winter/early spring 1984, and fishing pressure more than tripled that summer on Pallette Lake, jumping from 228 angler visits in 1983 to 754 in 1984. Unfortunately, few anglers matched the success rates Kulpa cited, despite having the skills to bait their own hooks.

   Therefore, many didn’t return. Angler visits dropped 31% to 518 in 1985 and then 22% to 402 in 1986. By summers 1987 and 1988, angler visits returned to normal, 214 and 233, respectively.

   So, what happened? The newcomers hadn’t fact-checked Kulpa’s claims by studying other DNR data. Research for previous years showed few anglers were catching a fish every cast, 40 smallmouths in four hours, or 40 panfish in one afternoon. No, the data showed anglers averaged almost four hours per fish, and seven of 10 caught no fish.

   Thus, though Kulpa’s article helped more anglers discover the Escanaba lakes, they quickly learned the lakes’ fish weren’t as suicidal as Kalpa advertised.

   Still, many anglers continued to enjoy fishing those lakes. In fact, Sass said many locals long called them “Boulder Junction’s frying pan.”

   But the era of no bag limits and year-round seasons ended in 2003. And as conditions in the Northwoods change to shorter, warmer winters and longer, hotter summers, anglers should expect regulation adjustments, too.

  Sustained research is the only way to ensure Wisconsin’s northern lakes remain productive enough for healthy fisheries and public fishing in the decades ahead.