Trout, Morels, and a Wood-Fired Sauna: Inside the 2026 Spring Driftless Trout Camp
Spring trout camp is the marker of our guide season reaching full stride. All hands on deck. Months of prep and planning put to the first real test of the year. Chefs Pat and Joel handle the food front — the one thing we truly have control over — and they leave nothing to be desired. Returning clients will tell you the fishing is often great, but what they really come back for is the off-the-water experience: the food, the lodging, the company.
Camp starts as the first signs of green appear and ends in the peak of spring foliage. It's a magical time of year to be immersing yourself in a place this special. The birds arrive, the bugs emerge, the morels pop. Driving with the window down, fresh spring air in your accidentally sunburnt face after a day of putting the smackdown on Driftless trout — that's one of a BEAC guide's favorite feelings. We all talk about it. This year camp spanned two and a half weeks, with numerous returning groups who have made spring trout camp an annual tradition. Some of them have been coming since 2016.
The Water
This season kicked off with rain. A lot of it, falling the week before camp started — blowing out most of the local waters and giving us some real work to do. We wore down our tires scouring for fishable conditions. We found them. Our first group spent most of camp pulling fish out of stained but fishable water. It wasn't the dry fly fishing we'd hoped for, but nobody was disappointed after a day of bobber downs. As more rain arrived and kept the larger streams swollen and stained, we kept finding fish. Many of them on larger nymphs, which isn't the worst thing in the world.
As the waters began to clear toward the middle of camp, the fish started looking up. Temps dropped — overnight lows dipping into the high 30s — a bit chillier than we prefer, but we'd take that over the unseasonably warm conditions we've seen in past years. The cold mornings slowed the hatches and pushed most of the surface activity to the afternoon. We adjusted. More time for homemade biscuits and gravy and breakfast burritos. Nobody complained.
The Sauna
One of our attendees spotted a mention of a mobile sauna service in the Madison area while reading an article by local Elliot Adler in Drake Magazine and decided it would make a great addition to camp. A couple of phone calls later, we had it set up — Jaclyn of Kindled Community Sauna would be delivering her mobile wood-fired sauna, complete with cold plunge, for a three-night stay.
The rhythm sorted itself out quickly: each evening before dinner, we'd fire up the stove. By the time everyone was finishing dessert, the sauna had reached the perfect temp. Fish all day, eat well, then bake it out and jump in the cold plunge under the stars. Group consensus was overwhelmingly favorable. I have a feeling this won't be the last time we use Kindled's sauna at camp.
The food at trout camp is not an afterthought.
Here's what came out of the camp kitchen this year:
Night 1 Appetizer: Salsa roja y verde with tortilla chips Dinner: Pozole verde — pork, tomatillo, chiles, hominy — with minced onion, cilantro, crema, lime, avocado, radish, and hot sauces Dessert: Mexican wedding cookies
Night 2 Appetizer: Cold smoked venison sausage with Wisconsin cheeses Dinner: Grilled chicken (Raised by Hannah’s mom), baby kale salad with bell pepper, carrot, ranch, and cornbread crumbles, Wisconsin mac 'n cheese, pickles Dessert: Chocolate chip cookies
Night 3 Appetizer: Veggies with dill dip Dinner: Burger night — local ground beef, Colby, caramelized onion, all the fixings — with grilled potato fries and homemade Caesar salad Dessert: Dark chocolate brownies
Breakfasts: Homemade biscuits and gravy, eggs to order, breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, roasted poblano peppers, cheese, and salsa verde, plus yogurt, fruit, and granola throughout.
Lunches: Build-your-own stream sandwiches, chips, and fruit — packed and ready before we hit the water.
Cards and Bourbon
Every year it seems as though more cigars, finer whiskey, and new card games show up at camp. This year was no exception. One group arrived with a custom engraved bottle of Woodford Reserve Double Oaked — it did not survive. Wyatt brought his poker chips and a proper deck of cards and talked everyone into a few hands of poker after some spirited rounds of euchre.
The lodge has a big deck overlooking a quiet valley that sees little to no traffic, with a small creek below providing just enough sound to top the whole thing off. It's a great spot to pour a drink, light a cigar, and tell lies about your day on the water.
The Day We Forgot We Were Fishing
One afternoon we got high-holed by a DNR burn crew. We'd barely gotten settled in before a DNR technician informed us that the property we were on was about to be burned in about two hours and recommended we not be there for it. We heeded the advice and picked up the pace, working our way toward the boundary of the burn area.
Then someone spotted a morel mushroom. And then another. And then another.
Just like that, the anglers forgot what was hiding in the stream. We were enamored — eyes shifted from water to land, everyone exclaiming "found another!" That childhood curiosity had crept back into a group of adults, something that gets harder and harder to find in life's busy schedules. We sat on the bank, net full of morels, heckling the one angler still focused on the water, eating our sandwiches while the smell of a spring prescribed burn drifted in around us.
It was everything spring trout camp stands for. A perfect Driftless spring experience that only happens if you put yourself out there. We could have been frustrated about having to vacate our spot. Instead, we took what the day gave us. That memory will last longer than any single day of catching fish.
What Camp Is Really About
Our camps require a serious amount of work behind the scenes. But the experience they create — for guides and clients alike — is genuinely priceless. Spending multiple days immersed in it hits differently than a couple of day trips back to back. The food is intentional. The old fashioneds and laughs shared back at camp after a day on the water solidify the whole thing in a different way. The community-style experience is something the world needs more of.
We sell out every year, mostly through repeat bookings. It's hard to get in — but once you do, you'll understand why people keep coming back.
Fall trout camps are booking. Gather your crew or join one of ours. If you want to be first in line when spots open, reach out here.
