BirdTrout

Big River, Wisconsin

12.6 mapped river miles, draining 21 square miles, in the Rush Vermillion basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 18.5 miles away, and what this page knows about its temperature is Wisconsin DNR's classification of the water itself.

Open in BirdTrout →

Public land — where the bank is open to walk and fish

USGS gauge — live water temperature

Water temperature — the colour of the river, and of every dot on it

58 64 70

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 21.2 miles away, at Eau Galle River At Spring Valley, Wi — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today. A closer gauge has stopped reporting — its water-temperature series is empty, and was last stamped 8 January 2024, so no number here comes from it.

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.

Wisconsin DNR has classified 12.9 of the 12.9 miles NHD carries for this stream — 100% 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 River fishing report — what it reads right now
• When to fish the Big River — hatches, seasons and temperature
• Big River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
• Is the Big River good for brook 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 →

Species

• Brook Trout stocked only

WDNR has stocked brook trout into this water 3 times between 2018 and 2022. 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

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.

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

Big River sits in HUC 8 07040001, the Rush Vermillion basin, and drains 21 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 27 NHD reaches carry the name for 12.9 miles in total — more than the 12.6 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.

• Spring Creek 3.2 mi
• Little Trimbelle Creek 3.8 mi
• Trimbelle River 4.0 mi
• Goose Creek 4.7 mi
• Lost Creek 6.1 mi
• South Fork Kinnickinnic River 6.3 mi