McFarland's Fish Camp operated in every season, with crews catching carp in good and bad weather, repairing equipment and personal gear when fishing was impossible, feeding carp in the holding pen, and hauling fish to the railroad station. Soon after lake ice thawed in spring, large numbers of massing carp could be taken in a single haul, though early spring weather was unpredictable and crews sometimes returned wet and close to hypothermia. In summer, although carp spawned from April to August, thick plants made seining difficult, warm water made carp less predictable, and summer seining often caught small, newly hatched fingerlings. Fall was the peak seining season because fish moved into the shallows to feed before freeze-up, single hauls could exceed 100,000 pounds, and crews intensively seined schooled carp and placed them in holding pens so they could keep fishing. In winter, some crew members left McFarland to catch carp under the ice at lakes such as Winnebago and Koshkonong, while others harvested carp in the Rock, Bark, or Crawfish rivers, where fish concentrated in winter and could be seined by placing nets upstream and downstream of a school. Open-water fishing allowed larger harvests and could offer ideal conditions in good weather, but spring and fall waters were cold and large lakes were dangerous in wind, while ice fishing let trucks and winches be placed on the ice and made fish easier to catch because schools were less active, though setting and pulling nets under ice was difficult and finding carp schools through ice and snow took time.