Madison, Wis. — Avid trout fishermen think fondly of the western trout rivers, but they also know that Wisconsin offers abundant opportunities for their favorite sport.

The land mass is close to being surrounded by rivers or lakes, with some of the finest trout fishing available on such attractive waters as Black Earth Creek, Timber Coulee Creek and the famous Brule ("River of Presidents") and Kinnickinnic Rivers.

The trout native to Wisconsin's waters is the brook trout, flashing a spectacular pattern of colors and dots. Brookies live in the cleanest, coldest streams.

Brown trout were stocked in state waters more than 100 years ago and are the prize of anglers who fish the deeper holes scoured out by the current.

Anglers who travel to Wisconsin for the ESPN Great Outdoor Games July 8-11, 2004, will find good trout fishing just a stone's throw outside of Madison, where competitors will also fish.

Blessed with trout

Land use changes have made notable improvements in the quality and quantity of trout resource in LaCrosse, Vernon, Crawford and Monroe Counties west of Madison. These improvements along with active habitat restoration programs by the DNR, local chapters of Trout Unlimited and conservation clubs plus the switch from domestic strains of trout to "wild" trout, have resulted in a good number of waters that formerly were empty of trout but now have a self-sustaining populations of wild brook trout.

Closer to Madison, in western Dane County, streams range from true brooks to the wider, grassland-type streams that attract fly fishermen. Habitat restoration work and easement maintenance provides many public fishing opportunities.

Black Earth Creek near Cross Plains and Mount Vernon Creek south of Mount Horeb hold high trout numbers and offer true wild fish. Recent habitat improvement work on the West Branch of the Sugar River and its adjacent tributary streams (Deer Creek and Frye Feeder) offer newly reclaimed water and a more open "feel" along the stream corridor.

Black Earth Creek is one of the gems of the area, with high populations of trout even with heavy fishing pressure.

Scot Stewart, fisheries biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in Fitchburg, said that even though the upstream portion of Black Earth Creek suffered a fish kill a couple years ago (believed to come from rural runoff), there is almost no effect now and there are very nice densities of fish.

"The downstream portion is responding with natural reproduction and now has two-thirds of the number of fish that it used to," Stewart said.

Mount Vernon Creek has a dense population of reproducing brown trout, and gets some brook trout that filter in from Frye Feeder and Deer Creeks. Some rainbows move up from the west branch of the Sugar River into Mt. Vernon Creek. There is a special stretch of the creek that has catch-and-release regulations, but most of the creek has a minimum size limit of nine inches and a three-fish daily bag limit.

Stewart, an avid fisherman, is looking forward to the ESPN Great Outdoor Games coming to Madison.

"I love this stuff, and watch as much of the Games as I can," he said. "I think it is exciting and feel that this type of competition won't do any harm to the creek whatsoever."