The Brule Hatchery's Empty Year Lands on Lake Superior, Not the River

The raceways on East Hatchery Road are fed by the Little Brule River. Through most of 2026, that water has run through concrete channels with no fish in them. Wisconsin Public Radio's Danielle Kaeding photographed the raceways and ponds in June and described a hatchery that "sits empty." As of this week, the Wisconsin DNR's page for the Brule State Fish Hatchery still lists its hours as "Hatchery closed until further notice."

The Bois Brule's lake-run steelhead and coho are a different story. The DNR describes the runs it counts at the lamprey barrier as populations that reproduce naturally, so the river's fall season does not depend on the raceways upstream. The brown trout the hatchery finishes go out to the big lake on an 18-month schedule, so the gap from 2026 will show up out on Lake Superior later. Most of the fish that will carry that gap are spending this winter at St. Croix Falls, and local anglers helped pay to get them there.

What a Normal Year Moves Through Hatchery Road

The Brule hatchery's main job is finishing fish that start somewhere else. Each summer about 160,000 brown trout fingerlings come down from the Les Voigt State Fish Hatchery in Bayfield to grow out in Brule's raceways before release. The DNR lists Brule as a rearing station for Seeforellen brown trout, with steelhead and coho salmon in some years.

The 2025 figure comes from the Superior Telegram's June 11 report. The staffing detail comes from WPR, which reported that as of July 1 neither Brule nor the Osceola hatchery would have any employees besides the supervisors overseeing them.

Those 2025 fish were stocked into Lakes Superior and Michigan, so most of the hatchery's recent output has gone to open water rather than to the river below Highway 2.

The Run That Doesn't Need a Hatchery

The DNR counts the Brule's lake-run trout and salmon by video at the fishway on the sea lamprey barrier. The latest fall report available covers 2025. It counted 4,497 steelhead, 3,143 brown trout, 2,090 coho salmon, 612 Chinook salmon, 100 pink salmon, five splake and four brook trout. The agency said all three of the most common species "slightly increased from their 2024 numbers." It described the 2025 counts as reflecting "populations of trout and salmon that sustain themselves through natural reproduction."

The steelhead report, dated July 20, 2026, combined the fall 2025 and spring 2026 counts into a total of 5,056 fish and labeled it the "Total Wild Steelhead Run Count." Most of that run came in the fall, and the fall peak arrived in early October, as it has in many earlier years.

That is why a year without hatchery production does not empty the river. The runs the DNR counts at the fishway sustain themselves. In 2025 the steelhead and coho counts were highest from late September through mid-October, and the run wrapped up in mid-November as water temperatures dropped.

The DNR put a fun figure in that 2025 update. If every fish counted at the fishway were lined up nose to tail, the line would stretch 3.68 miles. The Brule itself is 44 miles long.

Where the Empty Year Actually Lands

The missing fish are Lake Superior brown trout, and their effect comes slowly. According to WPR, the Les Voigt fingerlings were about two inches long and six and a half months old in mid-May. Brown trout like these are "usually stocked into Lake Superior when they're 18 months old." The DNR describes its Lake Superior brown trout program as stocking yearlings in spring, scattered along the shore, and its five-year progress report says brown trout go in every year along the shoreline from Superior to Saxon Harbor.

The cuts on paper were steep. The Ashland Daily Press reported that the DNR's late-April plan would cut brown trout stocking for Lake Superior by 65 percent. Across the state, WPR reported the agency later scaled overall stocking reductions back from 11 percent to 7 percent and nearly restored musky stocking.

Todd Berg, who represents the newly formed group Friends of the Wisconsin Fisheries, told WPR about a spring day on Chequamegon Bay. He and his wife were fishing for coho when a light rod went off. Twenty minutes later it turned out to be "a 32-inch brown trout that was just short of 20 pounds."

The 120,000 Fish Wintering at St. Croix Falls

The plan for the fish that would normally have finished growing at Brule changed during the summer. WPR reported in June that, with Brule closed, some of the Les Voigt brown trout "will be released early this fall." By September, Outdoor News reported that the DNR had planned to release them in October as two- to three-inch fingerlings, and that members of Friends of Wisconsin Fisheries had "vehemently questioned" that decision. Outdoor News reported the outcome this way: "More than 120,000 brown trout eventually destined for Lake Superior will soon settle into their new over-winter home at Wisconsin's St. Croix Falls State Fish Hatchery, thanks to the efforts – and wallets – of local fishermen."

That figure is worth setting against Brule's usual summer intake of about 160,000. Most of the year class that would have grown out on Hatchery Road is still alive, just in a different hatchery. Brule's part this year was the empty raceways.

Money is the pressure underneath all of it. WPR reported that fish food costs have risen at least 229 percent over two decades. Darren Miller, who supervises the Les Voigt and Brule hatcheries, put it in feed-bag terms. A 50-pound bag "used to be about $16," he said, and "now, it's about $55."

Local Money Built It in 1927

Anglers paying to keep the fish going matches how the hatchery began. The Wisconsin Historical Society's record for 13847 Hatchery Road says the Douglas County Board, the Douglas County Fish and Game League and the St. Paul Club, a private sporting club on the Brule River, together put up $4,000 to build the original building. They then turned it over to the state.

The record traces how the station grew:

1. 1926–1927. The log-sided rearing house goes up and opens in 1927 as the Brule Trout Rearing Station, raising brook trout brought in from hatcheries elsewhere.
2. 1938. The facility starts raising rainbow and brown trout, steelhead and salmon.
3. 1940. Eggs are hatched on site for the first time, which makes it a true hatchery.
4. 1997. The old office in the rearing house becomes a nature center.

Today the grounds include 17 concrete raceways, four earthen rock-lined raceways, eight rearing ponds and a concrete dam. The original rearing house still has its six-over-six wood sash windows.

Douglas County added its view this spring. On May 21, 2026, the Douglas County Board adopted Resolution 18-26. It supports keeping the hatchery open "indefinitely" and asks the DNR to work with county sporting groups, clubs and fish and game organizations to keep Brule "a major producer of fingerlings in Wisconsin." The resolution notes the hatchery has raised up to 400,000 coho salmon and brown trout a year. The Fish and Game League has been at this a long time. Tom Johnson of the League told WPR that groups have been working on the funding problem since the DNR first proposed closing Brule in 2012.

What Still Hangs Over 2027

The state's money question is still open. On May 12, 2026, the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee approved the DNR's request for spending authority and directed the agency to keep Brule running. In June the DNR said it would keep the facility closed for the rest of the year, citing staffing shortages and overall costs, including maintenance.

WPR's reporting, republished by Urban Milwaukee on October 15, said the $15 million transfers from the forestry account in each year of the 2025–27 budget have not ended the DNR's money problems. It also said the agency's 2027–2029 budget request does not include a fix for the shortfall in the fish and wildlife account. Friends of Wisconsin Fisheries held a town hall in Ashland on October 1, and Tom Johnson of the Douglas County Fish and Game League attended.

For now the details are local. The DNR's Brule page lists the location as 13847 East Hatchery Road, off Highway 27 south of Brule. Questions go to Darren Miller at (715) 372-4820. The brown trout wintering at St. Croix Falls are the next fish headed for Lake Superior. Whether the year class after them grows out in Brule's raceways depends on decisions made far from Hatchery Road.

The hatchery, the Little Brule and the wild runs past the fishway are part of what makes property along this river corridor different from anywhere else in Bayfield and Douglas counties. If you own near the Brule or are thinking about it, Peggy Kman follows these local changes closely and can walk you through how they relate to a specific property. Schedule a free consultation.