BirdTrout
Bean Brook, Wisconsin
10.3 mapped river miles, draining 25 square miles, in the St Croix basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 23.1 miles away, and what this page knows about its temperature is Wisconsin DNR'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 23.1 miles away, at Namekagon River At Leonards, Wi — 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: 05331833.
The character of the water
Bean Brook is Class III water under Wisconsin DNR, managed as stocked, and every typed mile of it is classed Cool rather than Cold — 11.8 miles, 61 per cent of its 19.34 NHD miles. That is the thing to know about it: the classification on this water is the cooler of the two, over the part of it the agency has reached. There is no gauge in it; the nearest is on the Namekagon, 23.1 miles away. It runs 10.2 feet across at the median, third order, draining 25.26 square miles over 10.3 mapped miles of axis. The ground is better than the water class suggests — 5.32 miles inside the 1,589-acre Bean Brook Fishery Area, with a second piece of the fishery area and a corner of the Washburn County Forest adding a few hundred yards. Little Bean Brook comes in at river mile 4.0.
Thermal classification
This is inferred, not measured. Wisconsin DNR 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.
Wisconsin DNR'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 | Wisconsin DNR type |
|---|---|---|---|
| RM 10.3–0.0 | 11.8 | cool | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 11.8 of the 19.3 miles NHD carries for this stream — 61% of it. Every typed reach carries the same class, cool. The untyped reaches are not warm water — they are water Wisconsin DNR's inventory does not reach, and the mile ranges above span only the reaches it does.
Questions about this river
- Bean Brook fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Bean Brook — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Bean Brook — access, parking and public land
- Bean Brook fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class III. The management tier on those reaches is stocked. This is a designation of the fishery, not the season and creel rules — those change yearly and live with the agency.
WDNR trout stream classification →
Public land on the river
3 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 156,298 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Bean Brook Fishery Area | state natural-resources agency | 1,589 |
| Washburn County Forest | county land | 154,670 |
| Bean Brook Fishery Area 2 | state natural-resources agency | 39 |
Species
Wisconsin DNR designates this as trout water — Class III — without naming the species. No fish survey or stocking record for this water is in the files this site reads.
Hatches on this water
42 insects are recorded from northern Wisconsin, 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 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 |
| Light Cahill Maccaffertium ithaca |
May–July | 55–68°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
2 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
Bean Brook sits in HUC 8 07030001, 07030002 and 07030005, the St Croix basin, and drains 25 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 13 NHD reaches carry the name for 19.3 miles in total — more than the 10.3 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.