12 Things That Confuse Everyone Who Moves to Wisconsin

Turn left on County Road BB, then right on CV. If you just moved to Wisconsin, that might sound like a typo.

Locals give directions like that without a second thought.

Here are the things that confuse everyone who moves to Wisconsin.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Wisconsin’s hunting, ice-fishing, tavern and butter rules are subject to change. Confirm current requirements with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (hunting and ice fishing), the Department of Revenue (taverns) and the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (butter).

1. Friday Fish Fry

Travel Wisconsin attributes the Friday fish fry to the Catholic Church, Prohibition and freshwater fish.

Catholic leaders asked parishioners to skip meat on Fridays, and walleye, perch and bluegill were plentiful and cheap.

During Prohibition, taverns sold plates of fish to stay afloat.

By the mid-1960s, the church limited the Friday rule to Lent.

But going out for fish on a Friday was already part of life by then.

If you order the full plate, your dinner may come with coleslaw, a slice of rye bread and either fries or potato pancakes.

2. Brandy Old Fashioneds

Order an old fashioned in Wisconsin, and it’s traditionally made with brandy, not the whiskey you may expect.

Wisconsin led the country in brandy consumption by the 1960s.

Labels such as Korbel and Christian Brothers, both from California, sit behind many Wisconsin bars, Milwaukee Magazine reported in 2019.

At the time, Wisconsin had long been the biggest market for Korbel.

Some bars even ask which brandy you’d like.

At a Wisconsin Dells-area supper club, the magazine’s writer was asked whether he wanted his old fashioned made with Korbel or Wollersheim.

3. Squeaky Cheese Curds

Many locals will tell you a cheese curd isn’t fresh unless it squeaks.

That squeak doesn’t last.

Curds typically lose it within a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on how they’re stored and served.

As of fall 2025, a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Dairy Research was looking for ways to make the squeak last longer.

4. Kids in Taverns

Wisconsin lets people under 21 into a tavern when a parent, guardian or spouse of legal drinking age is with them.

Many newcomers do a double take at the first tavern booth with kids in it.

The licensee decides, so a tavern can still turn them away.

Without an adult, the general rule is 21, with some exceptions.

5. Lettered County Roads

Wisconsin county highways use letters instead of numbers, with signs reading BB, CV, N and SS.

Counties use letters to keep their highways separate from numbered state highways.

Wisconsin Public Radio reported in 2019 that the lettered system dates back more than a century.

Each county board names its highways.

With 72 counties and only 26 letters, the same letter turns up in many counties.

That’s a lot of repeats.

When single letters run out, counties turn to doubles such as TT.

6. Town Boards

Wisconsin’s roughly 1,250 towns serve about 95% of the state’s land and 30% of its people.

Unlike cities and villages, towns are unincorporated, so they can only do what state law allows.

A town board, made up of a chairperson and two to four supervisors, handles day-to-day decisions.

Towns administer elections, ensure fire and ambulance service, run recycling and maintain town roads.

They also bill and collect property taxes, and some of that money goes to counties, schools and other governments.

7. Gun Deer Opener

This year's gun deer season runs Nov. 21-29.

When and where a firearm deer season is in progress, anyone hunting any game except waterfowl has to wear at least 50% blaze orange or fluorescent pink on their outer clothing above the waist.

Generations of hunters have headed to northern Wisconsin during November.

Family traditions often include weeks of preparing food and drinks and playing card games such as sheepshead and euchre during the hunt.

8. Ice-Fishing Shanties

On northern Wisconsin lakes, a few ice-fishing shanties can grow into an ice-fishing village, a University of Wisconsin-Madison lake scientist says.

Permanent ice-fishing shanties, or any you don't remove daily, have to come off the ice by a removal deadline, and the date depends on the water.

Portable shanties can stay after those deadlines if you take them off the ice when you aren't using them and at the end of each day.

The deadlines exist to avoid the extra costs and hazards of shanties breaking through the ice.

You can report a shanty left past its deadline by calling or texting the Department of Natural Resources violation hotline.

9. Up North

The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, citing the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, calls Up North a relative term, more a state of mind than an actual place.

Milwaukee Magazine reported in 2021 that the department declined to draw any bright lines on the map.

Still, the encyclopedia says that for many people, Up North stretches from the St. Croix River on the west to Highway 45 on the east, and from Lake Superior and the Michigan border on the north to Highway 8 on the south.

The same magazine story calls Highway 29 a common demarcation, while the writer's father counted anything north of Highway 64.

Where you start matters, too. From Beloit, the woodsy areas around the Wisconsin Dells are north of you.

10. Graded Butter

Wisconsin bars the sale of butter that hasn't been graded to Wisconsin or U.S. Department of Agriculture standards.

The state's butter rules also cover labeling, under administrative code ATCP 85.

11. Packers Shareholders

The Green Bay Packers have been a publicly owned, nonprofit corporation since 1923.

As of 2026, 538,967 stockholders own about 5.2 million shares, and none of them receives a dividend on the initial investment.

The team's articles of incorporation bar any person from owning more than 200,000 shares, to protect against someone taking control.

The team has sold stock six times, in 1923, 1935, 1950, 1997, 2011 and 2022.

Stock isn't available outside an offering period, and the last offering ran through Feb. 25, 2022.

12. Jump Around

You may feel Camp Randall Stadium shake when "Jump Around" plays at a Badger football game in Madison.

The tradition goes back to the homecoming game against Purdue on Oct. 10, 1998.

As the story goes, the song kicked in during a scoring drought at the start of the fourth quarter.

The Badgers won, 31-24.

If you jump along today, you're doing what Badger fans have done at Camp Randall since 1998, aside from one game in 2003.

That year, with Camp Randall under renovation, administrators paused the song because they feared the bouncing crowd would be too much for the project.