BirdTrout

Rifle River, Michigan

60 mapped river miles, draining 362 square miles across Arenac, Ogemaw counties, in the Au Gres-Rifle subbasin watershed. 1 USGS gauge report water temperature on it, and this page reads it.

Open in BirdTrout →

Public land — where the bank is open to walk and fish

USGS gauge — live water temperature

Water temperature — the colour of the river, and of every dot on it

58 64 70

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: Sterling is not reporting water temperature — it has sent no water temperature for 720 days, since 8 October 2024. 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

Thermal classification

Each gauge carries a July mean built from its own daily record — 6 Julys, 2019–2024, 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.

Every gauge sits at the bottom of its segment, so each number is the warm end and the water above it runs colder. ±1.98 °F on the fit.

The lake run

The Rifle River is a Lake Huron tributary with 55.0 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 Rifle River →

Questions about this river

• Rifle River fishing report — what it reads right now
• When to fish the Rifle River — hatches, seasons and temperature
• How to get to the Rifle River — access, parking and public land
• Rifle River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
• Is the Rifle River good for brown trout?
• Is the Rifle River good for rainbow trout?

Regulations

MDNR trout stream types, as designated. Types on file cover 60.2 of the 59.9 mapped miles; 0.0 miles carry no type in this dataset. Always check the current Michigan Fishing Guide before you fish — this is a copy, and the Guide is the rule.

Creel across all types: 5 fish, with no more than 3 trout 15“ or greater. Zero (0) Arctic Grayling. Tackle: Artificial lures and all types of natural bait may be used.

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.

13 mapped access sites on the mainstem: 1 walk-in, 12 boat or canoe launches. Source: MDNR.

USGS gauges

Every gauge on the mainstem, upstream first. Links go to the USGS monitoring-location page for the site.

• Rifle River near Sterling — 04142000 · RM 4.9
  178 July days of record across 6 Julys (2019–2024) · 182 cfs at last read

Public land on the river

11 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 61,203 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.

Species

• Brown trout stocked only
• Rainbow trout stocked only
• Walleye stocked only

Stocked, per the MDNR record: Brown trout, Rainbow trout, Walleye. The most recent plants are Brown trout at Pas (Ogemaw Co., through 2026); Brown trout, Rainbow trout at State Road - Selkirk (Ogemaw Co., through 2026); Brown trout, Rainbow trout at Rifle River (Ogemaw Co., through 2026).

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.

Hatches on this water

53 insects are recorded from northern lower Michigan, 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.

And 39 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

25 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.

• Silver Creek 24.3 mi · RM 31.1
• West Branch Rifle River 13.7 mi · RM 40.4
• Houghton Creek 9.5 mi · RM 57.8
• Prior Creek 9.5 mi · RM 50.3
• Wells Creek 8.7 mi · RM 26.1
• Saverine Creek 8.6 mi · RM 2.0
• Klacking Creek 8.5 mi · RM 49.8
• Mansfield Creek 7.0 mi · RM 29.2
• Gamble Creek 6.0 mi · RM 58.8
• Bear Creek 5.0 mi · RM 24.7
• Dedrich Creek 5.0 mi · RM 46.0
• Shepards Creek 5.0 mi · RM 47.0

Rifle River sits in HUC 8 04080101, the Au Gres-Rifle subbasin, and drains 362 square miles, Strahler order 5 at the mouth. 115 NHD reaches carry the name for 68.0 miles in total — more than the 59.9 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.

• Eddy Creek 7.0 mi
• Au Gres River 7.0 mi
• Mansfield Creek 7.0 mi
• Harwood Creek 7.9 mi
• Townline Creek 7.9 mi
• Feeding Ground Creek 8.0 mi