Pecatonica River
A river in Wisconsin
About Pecatonica River
The Pecatonica runs 72 miles through Lafayette and Green counties in the Driftless southwest, past Darlington, Gratiot and Wayne toward Illinois. The survey gives it 2,057 acres of surface and 375 miles of bank — an enormous amount of bank for the acreage, which is what happens when a river meanders across a wide flat valley bottom for its whole length.
Six public landings are on record: the Darlington boat ramp, the Highway 78 landing, Rolli Landing, Sargent's Landing and two general river accesses.
Smallmouth bass is the only state fisheries designation on it, but it is classified across all five habitat types the DNR uses — nursery water, wadable cool, wadable warm, and both non-wadable substrates. A river assessed across that full range is a river that changes a good deal between its headwaters and its mouth.
Check the current Wisconsin DNR regulations before keeping fish.
Written from Wisconsin DNR hydrography and fisheries data. State water ID WBIC 889100.
How the state manages it
- smallmouth · Non-Wadable Coarse Substrate; Non-Wadable Fine Substrate; Wadable Cool Water; Wadable Nursery Waters; Wadable Warm Water
Wisconsin DNR fisheries designations. These describe how the water is managed, not what is in it on any given day.
Fishing license
Wisconsin sells them online. Buy one from the state. We don’t know whether you need one — that depends on your age, where you live, the water, and what your guide’s own license covers.
Do you know this water?
The state lists these ramps nearby but doesn’t say which water they belong to. If you fish Pecatonica River, you’ll know better than we do.
Gratiot Conservation Club Access
listed as "Pecatomica River" · 20 m away