BirdTrout
Big Brook, Wisconsin
8.0 mapped river miles, draining 13 square miles, in the St Croix basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 3.4 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 3.4 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
Big Brook is entirely typed and entirely Cold: 8.0 miles, 99 per cent of its 8.08 NHD miles, under Wisconsin DNR's Class I designation and managed as wild. No gauge stands in the brook itself, but the nearest is unusually close for this set — 3.4 miles off on the Namekagon, which is the river this water runs into. It is 9.9 feet across at the median, third order, draining 13.01 square miles over the 8.0 miles of axis mapped. Three blocks of public ground front it, and the frontage rather than the acreage is the useful figure: 1.44 miles inside the Chequamegon National Forest, 0.39 through the Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway and 0.38 through the ten-acre Big Brook Fishery Area. The Namekagon, 124 miles long, is the larger water at the mouth.
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 8.0–0.0 | 8.0 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 8.0 of the 8.1 miles NHD carries for this stream — 99% 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
- Big Brook fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Big Brook — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Big Brook — access, parking and public land
- Big Brook fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class I. The management tier on those reaches is wild. 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, 966,158 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Chequamegon National Forest | U.S. Forest Service | 948,495 |
| Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway | National Park Service | 17,652 |
| Big Brook Fishery Area | state natural-resources agency | 10 |
Species
Wisconsin DNR designates this as trout water — Class I — 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.
Big Brook sits in HUC 8 07030001, 07030002 and 07030005, the St Croix basin, and drains 13 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 17 NHD reaches carry the name for 8.1 miles in total — more than the 8.0 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.