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Steele Creek, New York

10.8 mapped river miles, draining 26 square miles, in the Mohawk basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 4.9 miles away, and what this page knows about its temperature is NYSDEC's classification of the water itself.

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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.

The nearest live reading

The nearest gauge is 36.4 miles away, at Mohawk R Above State Highway 30a At Fonda Ny — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today. A closer gauge has stopped reporting — it has sent no water temperature for 334 days, since 29 October 2025, so no number here comes from it.

Thermal classification

NYSDEC's classification of this water, reach by reach. A class, not a temperature — no July mean, because none was measured here.

NYSDEC has classified 10.8 of the 11.1 miles NHD carries for this stream — 97% of it. Every typed reach carries the same class, cold. The untyped reaches are not warm water — they are water NYSDEC's inventory does not reach, and the mile ranges above span only the reaches it does.

Questions about this river

• Steele Creek fishing report — what it reads right now
• How to get to Steele Creek — access, parking and public land
• Steele Creek fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach

NYSDEC classification

NYSDEC classifies this water as Class B — swimming and contact recreation and Class C — fishing. More than one class appears because the classification changes along the river. The thermal bar above shows where. On those reaches DEC also designates it trout spawning waters, trout waters — which is the half of the classification that is about temperature, and the half this map paints by. The class is a designation of best usage under 6 NYCRR — what the water is protected for — and not the season and creel rules, which change yearly and live with the agency.

NYSDEC water quality classifications and standards →

Access

1 mapped NYSDEC access site within a quarter mile of the water, upstream first: Steele Creek Angler Parking (RM 2.9). 1 walk-in, 0 boat or canoe launches.

Public land on the river

6 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 570 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.

Species

NYSDEC designates this as trout water — Trout spawning waters, Trout waters — without naming the species. No fish survey or stocking record for this water is in the files this site reads.

Tributaries and watershed

Steele Creek sits in HUC 8 02020004, the Mohawk basin, and drains 26 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 20 NHD reaches carry the name for 11.1 miles in total — more than the 10.8 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.

• Moyer Creek 2.1 mi
• Fulmer Creek 2.8 mi
• Beaver Brook 4.4 mi
• North Creek 5.3 mi
• Nowadaga Creek 6.0 mi
• Ocquionis Creek 6.1 mi