
Camp Descriptions
Paddle Madison

Calling all paddlers ready to discover Madison from the water! This camp offers an exciting week of paddling adventures around the city. Campers will learn essential skills like packing for a canoe trip, loading boats onto trailers, mastering portaging, and performing T-rescues. Designed for seasoned paddlers, this camp is ideal for those looking to enjoy both day trips and longer paddling excursions. (Perfect for campers who have already participated in Canoe, Kayak, SUP, or Shipwrecked programs.)
Crafts & Watercrafts

Get ready to unleash your creativity! This camp is brimming with exciting hands-on activities, from nature crafts to fun on the water with our extensive fleet of watercraft. Dive into a week of creativity, exploration, and swimming as you craft, paddle, and paint your way through unforgettable experiences.
Play Paddle Discover

Welcome paddlers, explorers, and budding scientists! If you like to collect water specimens, find out what is in the water, turn logs over to find grubs, dissect owl pellets, build shelters, and paddle to cool places like Pheasant Branch Conservancy- then come on aboard! This camp not only lets campers have a blast on the water, it builds paddling skills, and includes hands-on learning activities where campers balance outdoor learning with plenty of fun!
Shipwrecked

What do you do if you find yourself SHIPWRECKED? Campers will have fun learning survival skills, capsizing canoes, performing T-rescues, and cooking over a fire. This camp will have campers making rafts, reading & creating maps, and “surviving” through fun team-building activities. Campers will get to paddle to many different Madison destinations.
Fish Paddle Play

This is Camp Wingra’s signature camp, including everything you love about Camp Wingra in one week of fun! Learn to navigate different boats; master tricks on a stand-up paddleboard, reel in bluegills, bass, or Oscar the Bull Shark, and display your courage in capture the flag! This smorgasbord of activities includes learning paddling strokes and fishing techniques. At Fish Paddle Play you can do it all and more. Grab your friends and join us!
Go-Fish

Bluegills, Sunfish, Crappies and more! This is our intro fishing camp that allows campers to spend a week of fishing. This camp is perfect for campers hoping to catch their first fish, learning to cast, and practicing taking their fish off the hook.
Intermediate Fishing

Time to fish! Cast under that log, pick the right lure, and begin to understand the impact that weather has on the fish. This is for the camper who is ready to take their fishing skills to the next level and wants to learn more about how to fish with lures and learn tips and techniques to become a serious angler. Campers should be comfortable paddling a canoe, have prior fishing experience, and have the desire to spend most of the week fishing.
FISH IT ALL

Calling all anglers who are ready to take their skills to the next level. This camp will explore different fishing spots, techniques, and lures and get your camper comfortable fishing out of a boat. This is the perfect camp for campers who love to fish but may not yet have the skills to fish independently.
This is the perfect camp to take after Go-Fish and is encouraged to be taken before Intermediate Fishing.
Advanced Fishing

This camp will target fishing for bass as well as northern, walleye, and ... the elusive muskellunge. This camp is all about building your skills. It takes more than a line in the water to catch the big ones. This camp is for experienced anglers only, they must want to fish all day and never stop until they must! This camp may require a drop-off or pick-up at a couple of different locations around Madison.
Note: If your camper hasn't already taken Intermediate Fishing, please reach out to see if this is a good fit for your camper.
Canoe, Kayak, SUP

Learning correct paddle strokes, playing paddle-sponge-tag, mastering a buoy turn on a SUP, and navigating an obstacle course will be part of the week’s fun as you expand on your paddling knowledge in kayaks, canoes, and SUP’s (Stand Up Paddle Boards). In this camp, campers will be paddling to different paddle destinations in Madison.
Ahoy Matey

We've got swashbuckling and paddling fun at this exciting camp for aspiring buccaneers who love being on the water! Band together with fellow pirates, and search for treasures as you learn paddling and navigational skills. Pirate arts and crafts and role-playing will help campers experience a pirate’s life on the high seas! We seek only the most fearsome scallywags to join our pirate crew! The half-day camp (AM/PM) is designed to only be taken for AM or PM, not both.
Girls Do It All

Paddle, fish, yoga, create, explore, and more! This unique camp will allow you to 'Do it All'. Staff work with the campers to create a week that connects campers with other girls while developing their paddling and fishing skills. A lot of fun activities like breakfast on the lake await anyone lucky enough to be in this camp.
Fishing Camp Progression
Our camps are designed to follow the following progression to help build campers' skills around fishing.
First- Go Fish! AM or PM
This is the perfect camp to introduce your camper to fishing, as well as to become comfortable on and around the water.
Second- Fish Paddle Play
This camp can be taken for multiple years in a row as campers develop their fishing skills. Our camps are tailored to the specific group of campers and their fishing interests.
Third- Fish It All!
This camp is designed to create independent anglers. It can be taken more than once. Campers should have some prior fishing experience, but more importantly, a desire to learn more!
Fourth- Intermediate Fishing.
For this camp, campers should be able to bait their own hooks, take their fish off a hook, and fish out of a canoe. In addition, they should be interested in learning more about fishing with lures and learning to fish out of a canoe. (This can be taken more than once, as our counselors can tailor this camp to individual needs)
**Many campers bring their own fishing equipment for this camp so that counselors can teach them how to properly use their own equipment.
Fifth- Advanced Fishing.
Most campers joining us for Advanced Fishing will have already taken Intermediate fishing at least once. Your camper should be very serious about fishing and be interested in spending all day every day fishing.
***Many campers bring their own fishing equipment for this camp so that counselors can teach them how to properly use their own equipment.

