BirdTrout
Menominee River, Michigan
36 mapped river miles, draining 3,957 square miles, in the Menominee subbasin watershed. 1 USGS gauge report water temperature on it, and this page reads it.
50°F and colder is cold, through cold-transitional and cool, to warm above 70°F — the same four bands, breaking at 58, 64 and 70°F, that the app paints. Grey is water nobody has measured.
Water temperature right now
Live from the USGS — every pill above is live, so the numbers you are reading are the latest continuous readings at each gauge. Provisional and unreviewed, as all real-time data is. If that fetch cannot happen — you are offline, or the USGS is down — the pills fall back to the last value we cached, 30 September 2026, 13:43 UTC. None of them, in fact: Mc Allister is not reporting water temperature — its water-temperature series is empty, and was last stamped 11 June 2026. That pill carries a modelled temperature where one can be fitted, marked as modelled, and a dash where it cannot — never a stale reading dressed as a current one.
The character of the water
Seventh-order water draining 3,956.92 square miles at a median width of 121.8 feet. Mapped length is 36.4 miles against 46.37 in NHD. This is one of the few streams here with a measured temperature: the gauge near Mc Allister, at river mile 0.0 with a 114.0-mile reach above it, records a July mean of 75.6 degrees with a July range of 13.1 degrees, across seven Julys of record from 2019 through 2025, with an uncertainty of 1.97 degrees and groundwater rated low. That gauge sits at the downstream end of its reach, so 75.6 is the warmest water in that stretch and everything upstream of it runs colder. Twenty-one public land units total 47,602 acres, led by the Escanaba River State Forest Escanaba Unit at 23,836 acres. The Little Cedar River, 55.0 miles, enters at river mile 24.3, and Little River, 35.2 miles, at 5.1. No regulation type, survey, stocking record or access site is listed.
Thermal classification
Each gauge carries a July mean built from its own daily record — 7 Julys, 2019–2025, measured rather than modelled. A July mean is what decides which of the four bands a stretch of water belongs to, because July is when a trout river either holds or does not.
| Reach | July mean | Band | Groundwater |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Mc Allister RM 36.4–0.0 |
75.6 °F | warm | low |
Every gauge sits at the bottom of its segment, so each number is the warm end and the water above it runs colder. ±1.97 °F on the fit.
The lake run
The Menominee River is a Lake Michigan tributary with 2.3 miles of run corridor on it — salmon, steelhead and lake-run brown trout, on their own calendar and under their own rules. Run timing, species and access on the Menominee River →
Questions about this river
- Menominee River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Menominee River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to the Menominee River — access, parking and public land
- Menominee River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
Fishable reaches
River miles are measured above the mouth, along the mapped mainstem. The reach breaks are the gauges, which is also how the temperature model divides the river.
| Reach | Miles | July mean | Access on it |
|---|---|---|---|
|
RM 36.4–0.0 down to Mc Allister |
114.0 | 75.6 °F | — |
0 mapped access sites on the mainstem: 0 walk-in, 0 boat or canoe launches.
USGS gauges
Every gauge on the mainstem, upstream first. Links go to the USGS monitoring-location page for the site.
-
Menominee River near Mc Allister
— 04067500 · RM 0.0
212 July days of record across 7 Julys (2019–2025) · 1,090 cfs at last read
Public land on the river
15 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 47,332 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Escanaba River State Forest - Escanaba Unit | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | 23,836 |
| Escanaba Management Unit | Michigan DNR | 10,648 |
| Spread Eagle Barrens Natural Area | State Dept. of Natural Resources | 5,421 |
| Wilderness Shores Recreation Area | — | 3,876 |
| Spread Eagle Barrens State Natural Area | — | 2,008 |
| Spread Eagle Barrens Natural Area | Non-Governmental Organization | 1,325 |
| Menominee River | Michigan DNR | 74 |
| Menominee River County Park | — | 63 |
| Northeastern States District Office | BLM | 46 |
| Crystal Springs Wayside | — | 13 |
Species
No species records for this water in the files this site reads.
Historical July mean
The measured record behind every temperature band on this page: the mean of the daily means for July, at each gauge, over the years USGS has one.
| Gauge | July mean | July range | Julys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mc Allister | 75.6 °F | 13.1 °F | 7 |
Hatches on this water
42 insects are recorded from the Upper Peninsula, which is the region this river sits in. That is a claim about the region and not a survey of this stream: nobody has recorded which of them has been caught here. Open the river in the app and the hatch panel will narrow it to the ones whose temperature window today's reading is inside.
| Insect | Peak | Water | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fish Eggs Other |
October–January and April | 33–60°F | #10–16 |
| Little Black Stonefly Allocapnia / Capnia spp. |
January–April | 34–46°F | #16–18 |
| Little Brown Stonefly Taeniopteryx / Strophopteryx spp. |
February–April | 38–50°F | #12–16 |
| Blue-Winged Olive Baetis spp. |
March–May and September–November | 38–58°F | #16–22 |
| Blackfly Simulium spp. |
April–June | 40–65°F | #18–22 |
| Cranefly Tipula spp. |
April–June and September–October | 40–65°F | #6–10 |
| Grannom Brachycentrus spp. |
April–May | 48–58°F | #14–16 |
| Green Rock Worm / Green Weenie Rhyacophila spp. |
April–June and September–October | 45–68°F | #10–14 |
| Hendrickson Ephemerella subvaria |
April–May | 45–58°F | #12–14 |
| Alderfly Sialis spp. |
May–June | 52–66°F | #10–14 |
| Caterpillar Lepidoptera larvae |
May–September | 55–75°F | #8–14 |
| Crayfish Orconectes spp. |
May–October | 55–78°F | #4–8 |
| Giant Black Stonefly (Salmonfly) Pteronarcys dorsata |
May–June | 50–62°F | #4–6 |
| Green Sedge Rhyacophila spp. |
May–August | 48–64°F | #12–16 |
And 28 more — the year-round records, mostly: midges, scuds and sculpins, which are in the water every day and are therefore never the news.
Tributaries and watershed
11 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Little Cedar River 55.0 mi · RM 24.3
- Little River 35.2 mi · RM 5.1
- Pine Creek 27.4 mi · RM 18.4
- Twin Creek 7.5 mi · RM 11.7
- Burke Creek 5.2 mi · RM 35.2
- Koss Creek 2.7 mi · RM 28.6
- Sobiesky Creek 2.0 mi · RM 14.0
- Wright Slough 1.6 mi · RM 3.5
- Coulter Slough 1.5 mi · RM 5.0
- Ostrango Creek 0.9 mi · RM 13.0
- Martin Creek 0.7 mi · RM 11.2
Menominee River sits in HUC 8 04030108, the Menominee subbasin, and drains 3,957 square miles, Strahler order 7 at the mouth. 59 NHD reaches carry the name for 46.4 miles in total — more than the 36.4 miles of drawn mainstem, because NHD counts side channels and braids as their own reaches.
Other water nearby
The closest 6 rivers on this site, straight-line from the middle of this one — not drive time.