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Escanaba River State Forest - Gwinn Unit, Michigan

278,470 acres of public ground in Marquette, Alger counties, managed by Michigan DNR. 98 named streams run through it, of which 96 are designated trout water — 1143.5 miles of it.

Open in BirdTrout
Map key
This unit — the ground this page is about
Other public land — state, federal and county ground around it
USGS gauge — a gauge, coloured by what it reads now
Water temperature — the colour of every stream on this ground

50°F and colder is cold, through cold-transitional and cool, to warm above 70°F — the same four bands the app paints. The colour is MDNR's classification of the valley segment, not a measurement, except at the gauge dots, which read live. Grey is water MDNR has not typed.

The unit in numbers

Assembled from MDNR and OSM ownership records, dissolved into one block: the section lines a state forest is surveyed in are not a fact about access, so they are not drawn and not counted twice.

278,470 ac
public ground
435.1 square miles · 352 separate blocks
Michigan DNR
managing agency
Forests
98
named streams on it
1157.3 miles · 96 designated trout
Open access
public access
as recorded in the ownership file

Getting on it

Open to the public on foot without a permit, as the ownership file records it.

This unit is 352 separate blocks of ground rather than one, which is normal for public land held in surveyed sections: the blocks are not contiguous. The map above draws every one of them, and the ground between two of them belongs to somebody else. Boundaries, closures and anything posted on the ground are Michigan Department of Natural Resources's to say, and 517-284-6057 is where to ask.

Trout streams on this ground

Every named stream whose reaches touch this unit, longest first. 78 of them have a page of their own and are linked; the rest are in the app. Thermal class is MDNR's classification of the valley segment, over the reaches it has typed. "Now" is the live USGS reading where a gauge stands in that stream.

Stream Miles Class Now Designation
Michigamme River 66.9 Cool — Type 2
Middle Branch Escanaba River 53.4 Cool 55.9°F Type 2
Escanaba River 52.2 Cool 63.5°F Type 2
Dead River 45.4 Cold — Type 2
Rapid River 35.9 Warm — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Yellow Dog River 32.4 Cold — Type 2
West Branch Whitefish River 32.2 Cool — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Peshekee River 31.1 Cool — Type 2
West Branch Escanaba River 29.3 Cool — Type 2
West Branch Peshekee River 23.1 Cool — Type 2
Chocolay River 21.7 Cold — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Werners Creek 21.2 untyped — Type 2
Salmon Trout River 20.7 Cold 48.2°F Type 2
Hunters Brook 18.7 Cool — Type 2
Black River Blue Ribbon 18.6 Cool — Type 2
Green Creek 17.9 Cold — Type 2
East Branch Whitefish River 16.6 Cold — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Bryan Creek 16.0 untyped — Type 2
Dexter Creek 16.0 Cool — Type 2
Sawmill Creek 15.0 Cool — Type 2
East Branch Escanaba River 14.8 Cool — Type 2
Mulligan Creek 14.5 Cold — Type 2
Trout Falls Creek 13.9 Cold — Type 2
Johnson Creek 13.7 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Little West Branch Escanaba River 13.3 untyped — Type 2
Mitchigan River 12.8 Cold — Type 2, Type 3
East Branch Chocolay River 12.6 untyped — Type 2
Flat Rock Creek 12.6 Cold — Type 2
Bobs Creek 12.5 Cool — Type 2
Wilson Creek 12.2 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Chandler Brook 12.1 untyped — Type 2
West Branch Middle Branch Escanaba River 12.1 untyped — Type 2
Scott Creek 11.8 Cool — Type 2
Silver Creek 11.8 Cold — Type 2, Type 4
Big Creek 11.5 Cold — Type 2
Deer Creek 11.2 Warm — Type 2
Big Brook 10.8 Cold — Type 2
Little Garlic River 10.6 Cold — Type 2
Schwartz Creek 10.5 untyped — Type 2
Wilson Creek 10.1 untyped — Type 2
Black Creek 9.9 Cold-transitional — Type 2
LeVasseur Creek 9.9 Cool — Type 2
Sand River 9.4 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Sucker Creek 9.4 Warm — Type 2
Barnhardt Creek 9.3 untyped — Type 2
Bismark Creek 9.2 Cold — Type 2
Nookomis nbi 9.0 Cold-transitional — —
Bass Creek 8.3 untyped — Type 2
Camp Eleven Creek 8.3 Cold — Type 2
Poplar Creek 8.3 Cold — Type 2
McMaster Creek 8.1 untyped — Type 2
Little Huron River 8.0 Cold — Type 2
Huron River 7.5 untyped — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Cedar Creek 7.2 Cold — Type 2
Halfway Creek 7.0 Cold-transitional — Type 2
West Branch Chocolay River 7.0 untyped — Type 2
East Branch LeVasseur Creek 6.9 Cool — Type 2
East Branch Sand River 6.6 Cold — Type 2
Huber Creek 6.4 untyped — Type 2
Wild West Creek 6.4 untyped — Type 2
Nash Creek 6.3 Cold — Type 2
Second River 6.2 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Cherry Creek 6.1 Cold — Type 2, Type 4
Klippel Creek 6.1 Cool — Type 2
Spring Creek 5.9 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Bear Creek Blue Ribbon 5.8 Cold — Type 2
Deadhorse Creek 5.8 Warm — Type 2
Flopper Creek 5.8 Cold — Type 2
Peterson Creek 5.7 Cold — Type 2
Johnson Creek 5.6 untyped — Type 2
Gambles Creek 5.5 Cool — Type 2
Lost Creek 5.5 untyped — Type 2
Chynes Creek 5.4 Cool — Type 2
Mud Creek 5.3 Warm — Type 2
Caps Creek 5.2 Cold — Type 2
Iron River Blue Ribbon 5.2 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
O'Neal Creek 5.2 Warm — Type 2
Miller Creek 4.9 Warm — Type 2
Harlow Creek 4.8 untyped — Type 1, Type 2
Nelligan Creek 4.8 Cool — —
Lone Pine Creek 4.5 untyped — Type 2
Wilson Creek 4.2 untyped — Type 2
Brown Creek 4.1 untyped — Type 2
Fifteen Creek 4.0 Cool — Type 2
North Branch Deer Creek 4.0 untyped — Type 2
Sheen Creek 3.9 untyped — Type 2
Gleason Creek 3.7 untyped — Type 2
Koops Creek 3.5 untyped — Type 2
Deer Creek 3.2 Cold — Type 2
Silver Lead Creek 3.2 Cold — Type 2
Swimming Hole Creek 3.2 untyped — Type 2
Dorow Creek 3.1 Cold — Type 2
Norby Creek 2.4 Cold — Type 2
Lindsey Creek 2.0 untyped — Type 2
McAfee Creek 1.9 untyped — Type 2
Rocky Creek 1.9 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Uncle Tom Creek 0.9 untyped — Type 2
Leisner Creek 0.7 untyped — Type 2

The miles are the whole stream's, not the miles inside this boundary: a river does not stop at a property line and neither does its page.

Hunting

This unit is not in the huntable public-land layer this app paints, so this page does not publish seasons for it. That is not the same as "hunting is closed here" — it means the layer the app draws from does not carry this ground, and the managing agency is the one to ask.

Access sites and amenities

No public access site we have on record stands on this unit. We hold no trail or campground data at all, so what is here is what the state publishes as launches and walk-in access, and none of it falls on this ground.

When to come

The hatch calendar for the Upper Peninsula, which is the region this unit's centre falls in — the same regions the app's hatch panel uses. It is a regional record, not a survey of this ground: nobody has counted insects unit by unit. Year-round records (midges, scuds, sculpins) are left out.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

What makes this unit distinctive

The Gwinn Unit is 278,470 acres in Marquette and Alger counties, in 352 separate blocks, and almost every named stream on it is trout water: ninety-eight named, ninety-six designated, 1,143.5 miles of designated water. Three are Blue Ribbon — Bear Creek, the Black River and the Iron River. The Michigamme is the longest at 66.9 miles, and the Middle Branch Escanaba and the Escanaba itself follow; MDNR types all three cool and types the Dead River cold. The unit reaches five watersheds, the Escanaba and Michigamme chief among them. It is not in the state's huntable-land layer — a gap in that file, not a closure — and no USGS gauge or recorded access site falls inside the boundary, so nothing on this page reads live.

Regulations

Nothing on this page is a regulation. The fishing rules that apply to the water on this ground — the types, the seasons, the size limits and the gear restrictions — are on the Michigan fishing regulations page, built from the agency's own columns.

Watersheds it lies in

The subbasins this ground drains into. Each one has the whole basin's water on it.

Public land nearby

The nearest other blocks of public ground, centre to centre. Public land does not tile a state the way watersheds do, so this is nearness rather than adjacency.

Plan a weekend around it

The trip pages whose range reaches this ground — the water in the same drive, what is hatching, and a three-day plan built from it.