BirdTrout

Sturgeon River, Minnesota

13.8 mapped river miles, draining 294 square miles, in the Big Fork basin watershed. A USGS gauge stands in it, but its record is too short for a measured July mean, so what this page knows about its temperature is today's reading and Minnesota DNR's classification of the water itself.

Open in BirdTrout
Map key
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

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.

The nearest live reading

The nearest gauge is 22.2 miles away, at Little Fork River Blw County Hwy 217 In Littlefork — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today. A closer gauge has stopped reporting — USGS carries no water-temperature series for it at all, so no number here comes from it.

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Little Fork River Blw County Hwy 217 In Littlefork
22.2 mi away
Unknown

Thermal classification

There isn't one. Minnesota DNR publishes no temperature classification for any water in Minnesota. What it publishes is the Chapter 6264 listing below — a land-use protection under Minnesota Rules, not a thermometer — so this river draws grey on the map above, and grey here means unmeasured rather than warm. The only temperature on this page is the live reading from the nearest USGS gauge, 0.0 miles away; it is a reading of that water, not this one.

Questions about this river

MN DNR trout stream designation

MN DNR lists Sturgeon River under Minnesota Rules Chapter 6264 as designated trout stream. Chapter 6264 is a land-use rule — its stated purpose is timber harvest and watershed permitting, with recreation second. It is not the season and creel rules, which change yearly and live with the agency, and it is not a statement about temperature.

MN DNR designated trout streams →

Public land on the river

2 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 1,363,535 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.

Unit Owner Acres
Pine Island State Forest state natural-resources agency 731,448
Pine Island Minnesota DNR 632,087

Species

Minnesota DNR designates this as trout water — Designated trout stream — without naming the species. No fish survey or stocking record for this water is in the files this site reads.

Tributaries and watershed

1 named stream meets this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.

Sturgeon River sits in HUC 8 09030006, 09030008 and 09030009, the Big Fork basin, and drains 294 square miles, Strahler order 4 at the mouth. 14 NHD reaches carry the name for 13.8 miles in total.

Other water nearby

The closest 4 rivers on this site, straight-line from the middle of this one — not drive time.