BirdTrout
Mackinaw State Forest - Gaylord Unit, Michigan
311,362 acres of public ground in Cheboygan, Emmet, Otsego, Antrim counties, managed by Michigan DNR. 96 named streams run through it, of which 81 are designated trout water — 935.7 miles of it.
Open in BirdTrout50°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.
Getting on it
Open to the public on foot without a permit, as the ownership file records it.
This unit is 310 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. 50 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manistee River Blue Ribbon | 190.1 | Cold-transitional | 54.9°F | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4 |
| Black River Blue Ribbon | 78.5 | Cold-transitional | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Pigeon River Blue Ribbon | 47.0 | Cool | — | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3 |
| Sturgeon River Blue Ribbon | 40.8 | Cold | — | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3 |
| North Branch Au Sable River | 37.0 | Cold-transitional | 56.1°F | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3 |
| Intermediate River | 35.5 | Cool | — | Type 1, Type 2 |
| Jordan River Blue Ribbon | 35.1 | Cold | — | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4 |
| West Branch Big Creek | 33.8 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Bear River | 19.6 | Cool | — | Type 1, Type 2, Type 4 |
| West Branch Sturgeon River Blue Ribbon | 18.6 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| West Branch Maple River | 17.9 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Little Pigeon River | 16.6 | Cold-transitional | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Carp Lake River | 13.8 | Cold-transitional | — | Type 1, Type 2 |
| Stony Creek | 12.9 | Cold-transitional | — | Type 2 |
| Little Sturgeon River | 12.4 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Cedar River Blue Ribbon | 11.6 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Milligan Creek | 11.4 | Cool | — | Type 2 |
| Deer Creek | 11.3 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 4 |
| South Branch Boyne River | 11.2 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Mullett Creek | 11.0 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Berry Creek | 10.9 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Kolke Creek | 10.7 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Mud Creek | 10.7 | Cool | — | — |
| Mill Creek | 9.5 | Cool | — | Type 1, Type 2 |
| McPhee Creek | 8.7 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Maple River Blue Ribbon | 8.5 | Cold-transitional | — | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4 |
| Warner Creek | 8.5 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Van Creek | 8.1 | Cool | — | Type 2 |
| Crapo Creek | 8.0 | Warm | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| North Branch Spring Brook | 7.5 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Silver Creek | 7.2 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Green River | 6.9 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Crumley Creek | 6.2 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Stewart Creek | 6.2 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Little Black River | 6.1 | Cool | — | — |
| South Branch Spring Brook | 6.1 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Boyne River Blue Ribbon | 6.0 | Cold | — | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4 |
| Minnehaha Creek | 6.0 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Turtle Creek | 5.7 | Warm | — | — |
| Crooked River | 5.6 | Cool | — | Type 2 |
| Hay Marsh Creek | 5.4 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Middle Branch Little Pigeon River | 5.2 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Mud Creek | 5.2 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Chub Creek | 5.0 | Cool | — | Type 2 |
| Collins Creek | 4.7 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Marion Creek | 4.4 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Brush Creek | 4.2 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Marl Creek | 4.2 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Mill Creek | 4.2 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Woolcott Creek | 4.2 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Lancaster Creek | 4.0 | Cool | — | — |
| Wycamp Creek | 4.0 | Cool | — | Type 2 |
| Bennett Creek | 3.9 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Fisher Creek | 3.9 | Cold | — | — |
| Indian River | 3.9 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Kocher Creek | 3.9 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 3, Type 4 |
| Moyer Creek | 3.7 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Gokee Creek | 3.6 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Cascade Creek | 3.4 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Frenchman Creek | 3.4 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 4 |
| North Branch Little Pigeon River | 3.4 | Cool | — | Type 2 |
| Stevens Creek | 3.4 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| French Farm Creek | 3.3 | Cool | — | — |
| Welch Creek | 3.2 | Cool | — | — |
| Johnson Creek | 3.1 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Allen Creek | 3.0 | Cold | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Licks Creek | 3.0 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Mason Creek | 3.0 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| West Branch Minnehaha Creek | 3.0 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Bartholomew Creek | 2.9 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Blackjack Creek | 2.8 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Cold Creek | 2.8 | Cool | — | Type 2 |
| Todd Creek | 2.8 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Adair Creek | 2.6 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Little Mud Creek | 2.6 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Hitchcock Creek | 2.5 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Schoolhouse Creek | 2.5 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Gimlet Creek | 2.4 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Severance Creek | 2.4 | Cold | — | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3 |
| Landslide Creek | 2.1 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Scott Creek | 2.0 | untyped | — | — |
| Cedar Creek | 1.9 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Cramer Creek | 1.9 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Lilak Creek | 1.9 | untyped | — | Type 2, Type 3 |
| Scott Creek | 1.9 | untyped | — | Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4 |
| Seamon Creek | 1.9 | untyped | — | — |
| Webster Creek | 1.8 | untyped | — | — |
| Gook Creek | 1.7 | untyped | — | — |
| Martin Creek | 1.5 | Cold | — | — |
| Spring Brook | 1.5 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Section Thirteen Creek | 1.3 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Tutstone Creek | 1.1 | untyped | — | — |
| Whites Creek | 1.0 | Cold | — | Type 2 |
| Hog Creek | 0.9 | untyped | — | — |
| Twin Lakes Creek | 0.8 | untyped | — | Type 2 |
| Six Tile Creek | 0.4 | Cold | — | — |
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 northern lower Michigan, 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
April
May
- Blue-Winged Olive
- Blackfly
- Blue Quill
- Cranefly
- +15 more
June
July
- Caterpillar
- Crayfish
- Green Sedge
- Light Cahill
- +20 more
August
September
October
November
December
What makes this unit distinctive
The Gaylord Unit of the Mackinaw State Forest is 311,362 acres across six counties at the top of the Lower Peninsula, in 310 blocks, and it carries nine Blue Ribbon streams — more than any other unit in this index. They are the Black, the Boyne, the Cedar, the Jordan, the Manistee, the Maple, the Pigeon, the Sturgeon and the West Branch Sturgeon. Ninety-six named streams touch the unit and eighty-one are designated trout water, 935.7 miles between them. The Manistee runs 190.1 miles and MDNR types it cold-transitional; it types the Sturgeon cold and the Pigeon cool. The unit reaches seven watersheds, from the Au Sable to the Boardman-Charlevoix, which is a way of saying it sits on the divide. One USGS gauge stands on it. It is not in the state's huntable-land layer, which is a gap in that file rather than a closure on the ground.
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.
- MNRTF Parcel 121 9.9 mi
- Boyd B. Banwell Nature Preserve 11.3 mi
- Jack and Tucker Harris Working Forest Reserve 11.5 mi
- Young State Park 11.6 mi
- Pigeon River Country State Forest 15.3 mi
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.