BirdTrout
Bear Creek, Wisconsin
7.4 mapped river miles, draining 7 square miles, in the Upper Wisconsin basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 21.9 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 gauge, and why there is no reading from it
The nearest gauge, 21.9 miles away at Allequash Creek @ Ct Hwy M Nr Boulder Junction, Wi, is not reporting water temperature: its water-temperature series is empty, and was last stamped 3 July 2024. A stopped gauge repeats its last value in silence, so there is no live temperature here. What is below is modelled from the years that gauge did report: this gauge's own fitted line, its intercept plus its slope against the 3-day mean air temperature over it, fitted on its own daily record, ±2.5 °F. The shape of the week at that gauge, not a thermometer in this stream.
The character of the water
This Bear Creek drains 6.94 square miles in the Upper Wisconsin basin, second order and 6.5 feet across at the median, and the 7.4 miles of axis mapped are effectively its whole NHD length of 7.47. Wisconsin DNR designates it Class II and Class III, managed as wild supplemented and as stocked, and 99 per cent of it is typed — 4.3 miles Cold against 3.1 Cool, though these files cannot say which end each sits at. There is no gauge in it and no measured temperature. Three blocks of public ground front it: 2.23 miles inside Forest Legacy Program land and another mile and a half through two pieces of the Willow Flowage Scenic Waters Area — better than half the creek under public ownership. It runs into the Tomahawk River at its mouth, a water draining 398.45 square miles.
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 7.4–4.3 | 3.1 | cool | — |
| RM 4.3–0.0 | 4.3 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 7.4 of the 7.5 miles NHD carries for this stream — 99% of it. The typed water splits 4.3 mi cold, 3.1 mi 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
- 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
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class II and Class III. 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 stocked, 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
3 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 209,420 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Forest Legacy Program | land trust or conservancy | 181,078 |
| Willow Flowage Scenic Waters Area | state natural-resources agency | 26,760 |
| Willow Flowage Scenic Waters Area 15 | state natural-resources agency | 1,581 |
Species
Wisconsin DNR designates this as trout water — Class II, 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
1 named stream meets this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Tomahawk River 61.3 mi · RM 0.0
Bear Creek sits in HUC 8 07070001, the Upper Wisconsin basin, and drains 7 square miles, Strahler order 2 at the mouth. 10 NHD reaches carry the name for 7.5 miles in total — more than the 7.4 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.