Rock River

About Rock River

The Rock River runs 74 miles through southern Wisconsin, from the Horicon Marsh down through Watertown, Jefferson, Fort Atkinson, Janesville and Beloit before crossing into Illinois. The survey gives it 4,353 acres of surface and 286 miles of bank across Dodge, Jefferson and Rock counties.

Twenty-eight public landings are on record — more than most rivers of this size — and they are overwhelmingly city and park ramps: Armstrong Eddy, Candise Street, Fannie P. Lewis Park, Afton Road. This is a river people live along rather than travel to.

The only state fisheries designation on it is smallmouth bass, classified across non-wadable coarse substrate, non-wadable fine substrate and wadable nursery water. That mix describes a river that changes character between the impounded stretches and the runs between them.

Check the current Wisconsin DNR regulations before keeping fish.

Written from Wisconsin DNR hydrography and fisheries data. State water ID WBIC 788800.

How the state manages it

• smallmouth · Non-Wadable Coarse Substrate; Non-Wadable Fine Substrate; Wadable Nursery Waters

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.