BirdTrout
Bear Creek, Wisconsin
13.5 mapped river miles, draining 68 square miles, in the Lower Wisconsin basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 29.9 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 29.9 miles away, at Black Earth Ck Nr Treatment Plnt @ Cross Plains,wi — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today.
The character of the water
The Lower Wisconsin basin's Bear Creek is designated Class I and Class II by Wisconsin DNR, managed as wild and as wild supplemented, with 18.4 of its 27.57 NHD miles typed Cold — 67 per cent, and no reach classed anything else. There is no gauge in it and so no measured temperature. The channel is 16 feet across at the median, fourth order, draining 67.72 square miles over the 13.5 miles of axis mapped. Public ground is present but slight against that length: 0.53 of a mile inside the 762-acre Bear Creek Fishery Area and 0.24 through a parcel of the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway, three-quarters of a mile of frontage in all. Little Bear Creek, 8.7 miles long, comes in at river mile 6.5, halfway up the mapped water.
Thermal classification
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 13.5–9.0 | 18.4 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 18.4 of the 28 miles NHD carries for this stream — 67% of it. Every typed reach carries the same class, cold. 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
- Bear Creek fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Bear Creek — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Bear Creek — access, parking and public land
- Bear Creek fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
- Is Bear Creek good for brook trout?
- Is Bear Creek good for brown trout?
- Is Bear Creek good for rainbow trout?
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class I and Class II. More than one class appears because the classification changes along the river. The thermal bar above shows where. The management tier on those reaches is wild, wild supplemented. 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
2 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 873 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Bear Creek Fishery Area | state natural-resources agency | 762 |
| Lower Wisconsin State Riverway 126 | state natural-resources agency | 111 |
Species
WDNR has stocked brook trout into this water 9 times between 2016 and 2024. That is a stocking record rather than a survey — it says the fish were put in, not that a survey has found them since.
WDNR has stocked brown trout into this water 13 times between 2015 and 2024. That is a stocking record rather than a survey — it says the fish were put in, not that a survey has found them since.
WDNR has stocked rainbow trout into this water 5 times between 2015 and 2019. That is a stocking record rather than a survey — it says the fish were put in, not that a survey has found them since.
Hatches on this water
51 insects are recorded from the Wisconsin driftless, 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 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 |
| 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 |
| Hendrickson Ephemerella subvaria |
April–May | 45–58°F | #12–14 |
| Little Black Caddis Chimarra atterima |
April–May | 46–58°F | #16–20 |
| Caterpillar Lepidoptera larvae |
May–September | 55–75°F | #8–14 |
| Crayfish Orconectes spp. |
May–October | 55–78°F | #4–8 |
| Inchworm Geometridae |
May–June | 50–68°F | #12–16 |
| Light Cahill Maccaffertium ithaca |
May–July | 55–68°F | #12–16 |
And 37 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.
- Little Bear Creek 8.7 mi · RM 6.5
Bear Creek sits in HUC 8 07070005, the Lower Wisconsin basin, and drains 68 square miles, Strahler order 4 at the mouth. 35 NHD reaches carry the name for 27.6 miles in total — more than the 13.5 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.