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Trout fishing near Grand Rapids, Minnesota

Last updated 2026-09-24 · water classified by MN DNR

MN DNR lists 9 named streams as trout water within 40 miles of Grand Rapids, Minnesota — 46.1 miles of it inside that circle. The most of it is Morrison Brook, 11.7 miles out, with 13.1 classified miles that MN DNR lists as a designated trout stream. The closest is Smith Creek at 8.5 miles. A listing is MN DNR's statement about the water, not a record of a fish in it and not permission to stand on the bank — check access and the current regulations before you go.

The trout water within 40 miles of Grand Rapids

Ranked by how much classified water lies inside the circle, and by nothing else. Distance is a straight line to the nearest point of the stream rather than to its middle, because the question is how far you drive before you can park — this app carries no road network and will not print a drive time it cannot compute. A stream that runs out of the circle is counted for the part that is inside it, never for its whole length.

Stream Miles out Classified miles MN DNR listing Size
Morrison Brook 11.7 13.1 Designated trout stream small stream
Sand Creek 11.7 8.6 Designated trout stream small stream
Smith Creek 8.5 8.1 Designated trout stream small stream
Stony Brook part of the stream 36.8 4.5 Designated trout stream small stream
Spring Creek 13.1 2.8 Designated trout stream creek
Spring Branch 31.3 2.5 Designated trout stream creek
Pickerel Creek 17.1 2.4 Designated trout stream creek
West Branch Floodwood River 18.5 2.2 Designated trout stream creek

9 named streams clear the circle in all and the 8 holding the most classified water are named. The rest carry less water than something a reader would pass on the way to it.

A stream marked part of the stream carries classified water outside the circle too, and the mileage here is only what is inside it. There is no thermal column, because MN DNR publishes no thermal class. What it publishes is a listing of designated trout streams under Minnesota Rules Chapter 6264 — and Chapter 6264 is a timber-harvest and watershed-permitting rule, so a reach being listed under it says the legislature protected the watershed, not that anybody measured the water in July. Rather than infer a temperature from a land-use statute, this page leaves the column out.

What MN DNR is saying, and what it is not

Every row above is on the list because Minnesota Department of Natural Resources publishes a listing of designated trout streams under Minnesota Rules Chapter 6264. That is the reach being listed in Minnesota Rules Chapter 6264 as a designated trout stream — the flag-1 listing, not the flag-2 protected tributaries, which are listed for what they flow into and carry no claim about trout. It is not a record of a fish caught there, it is not a promise about any particular day, and it is not permission to walk to the bank — the land beside a classified stream can be private, and in most of these five states most of it is.

No species are named on this page. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources classifies the water and does not publish which trout a segment holds, and this site will not put a fish in a named creek on its own authority. The classes above are what the state does say.

Getting to the water

This site has built access pages in Minnesota and none of them stands within 40 miles of Grand Rapids, so this page names none. Check MN DNR for access, and read the boundary of any land you cross — a stream being classified says nothing about who owns the bank.

Thermometers in range

USGS gauges within 40 miles that report water temperature, nearest first. Federal rather than the state's, so one may stand across a state line. No reading is printed here — this page is about where the water is, and a temperature on it would be true only of the minute it was built. The river pages carry the live numbers.

Read next

Open this water on the map →Every reach around it coloured by today's water temperature, with the access points along it.