BirdTrout
Mill Creek, Virginia
4.5 mapped river miles, draining 6 square miles, in the Clinch Powell basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 2.0 miles away, and what this page knows about its temperature is Virginia DWR's classification of the water itself.
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 2.0 miles away, at Clinch River At Route 65 At Dungannon, Va — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today.
The pills above go to USGS. These are this site's pages for the same gauges — a thirty-day chart, the monthly means, the record, and today's reading against the five-year normal for today: 03524740.
Thermal classification
This is inferred, not measured. Virginia DWR does not publish a temperature classification for this water. What it publishes is a management tier — whether the trout in it are wild, hold over through summer, or are stocked and fished out — and the bands below are read off that tier, because a stream that sustains wild trout is a cold stream and one that does not hold fish past July is not. It is the agency's judgement of the fishery translated into the four bands this site paints everywhere else; it is not a thermometer, and where the two disagree the thermometer is right.
Virginia DWR's classification of this water, reach by reach. A class, not a temperature — no July mean, because none was measured here.
| Reach | Typed miles | Band | Virginia DWR type |
|---|---|---|---|
| RM 2.7–0.0 | 2.7 | cold-transitional | — |
Virginia DWR has classified 2.7 of the 14.9 miles NHD carries for this stream — 18% of it. Every typed reach carries the same class, cold-transitional. The untyped reaches are not warm water — they are water Virginia DWR's inventory does not reach, and the mile ranges above span only the reaches it does.
Questions about this river
- Mill Creek fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Mill Creek — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Mill Creek — access, parking and public land
- Mill Creek fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
Virginia DWR classification
Virginia DWR classifies this water as Class V. The management tier on those reaches is stocked holdover. This is a designation of the fishery, not the season and creel rules — those change yearly and live with the agency.
VDWR trout waters and stocking →
Public land on the river
2 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 1,710 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Cleveland Barrens State Natural Area Preserve | state park agency | 855 |
| Cleveland Barrens State Natural Area Preserve | state conservation department | 855 |
Species
Virginia DWR designates this as trout water — Class V — without naming the species. No fish survey or stocking record for this water is in the files this site reads.
Hatches on this water
56 insects are recorded from the Virginia mountains, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Quill Gordon Epeorus pleuralis |
March–April | 42–52°F | #12–14 |
| Blackfly Simulium spp. |
April–June | 40–65°F | #18–22 |
| Blue Quill Paraleptophlebia adoptiva |
April–May | 44–56°F | #16–18 |
| 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 |
| Little Black Caddis Chimarra atterima |
April–May | 46–58°F | #16–20 |
| 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 |
And 42 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
1 named stream meets this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Clinch River 80.7 mi · RM 0.0
Mill Creek sits in HUC 8 06010205 and 06010206, the Clinch Powell basin, and drains 6 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 31 NHD reaches carry the name for 14.9 miles in total — more than the 4.5 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.