BirdTrout
Big Rib River, Wisconsin
15.6 mapped river miles, draining 117 square miles, in the Lake Dubay basin watershed.
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 character of the water
Wisconsin DNR designates the Big Rib under all three of its classes at once — Class I, Class II and Class III, managed as wild, wild supplemented and stocked — and the thermal typing splits the same way: 11.9 miles classed Cold against 5.8 classed Cool, 17.7 typed in all, which is 38 per cent of its 46.28 NHD miles. That is a low coverage figure, so what is classed here is a sample rather than the whole river, and these files cannot say which end of it each class sits at. There is no gauge in it and no measured temperature. It runs 18 feet across at the median, fifth order, draining 117.2 square miles over the 15.6 miles of axis mapped. Public ground is two pieces of the Rib River Fishery Area, 275 acres between them, fronting a little under two miles. Wood, Silvernagel and Sheep Ranch Creeks come in along the length; Lemke Creek meets the river at the mouth.
Thermal classification
There is no USGS gauge within 40 miles of this stream in the record this site holds, so there is no live temperature on this page and no measured July mean. Everything below the bar is Wisconsin DNR's own classification of the water.
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 7.1–0.0 | 8.1 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.6 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.1 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.1 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.1 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 1.7 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.1 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.2 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.5 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.9 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.2 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.1 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.4 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.5 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.3 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.4 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.7 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.5 | cool | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 1.4 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 0.8 | cool | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 17.7 of the 46 miles NHD carries for this stream — 38% of it. The typed water splits 11.9 mi cold, 5.8 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
- Big Rib River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Big Rib River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to the Big Rib River — access, parking and public land
- Big Rib River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class I, 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, 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, 275 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Rib River Fishery Area | state natural-resources agency | 224 |
| Rib River Fishery Area 3 | state natural-resources agency | 50 |
Species
Wisconsin DNR designates this as trout water — Class I, 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
4 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Wood Creek 10.4 mi · RM 4.3
- Silvernagel Creek 9.2 mi · RM 7.5
- Sheep Ranch Creek 6.0 mi · RM 12.0
- Lemke Creek 5.7 mi · RM 0.0
Big Rib River sits in HUC 8 07070002, the Lake Dubay basin, and drains 117 square miles, Strahler order 5 at the mouth. 127 NHD reaches carry the name for 46.3 miles in total — more than the 15.6 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.