BirdTrout
Black Creek, Wisconsin
14.7 mapped river miles, draining 65 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 Lake Dubay basin's Black Creek Class I and Class II, managed as wild and as wild supplemented, and has typed 13.5 of its 32.56 NHD miles as Cold — 41 per cent, with no reach classed anything else. Two-fifths of the creek classified is a sample, and the file says nothing about the rest. There is no gauge in it and no measured temperature. It runs 13.2 feet across at the median, fourth order, draining 65.3 square miles over the 14.7 miles of axis mapped. Public ground amounts to one small piece: Erbach Park, 32 acres, with 0.82 of a mile of the creek inside it — a short but real stretch of open bank. Beaver Creek comes in at river mile 3.7, and Potato Creek meets the water 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 11.6–0.0 | 13.5 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 13.5 of the 33 miles NHD carries for this stream — 41% 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
- Black Creek fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Black Creek — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Black Creek — access, parking and public land
- Black Creek fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
- Is Black Creek 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 →
Public land on the river
1 unit of public or open-access land touches this river, 32 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Erbach Park | city land | 32 |
Species
WDNR has stocked brook trout into this water 4 times between 2015 and 2018. 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.
| 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
2 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Potato Creek 4.5 mi · RM 0.0
- Beaver Creek 4.5 mi · RM 3.7
Black Creek sits in HUC 8 07070002, the Lake Dubay basin, and drains 65 square miles, Strahler order 4 at the mouth. 70 NHD reaches carry the name for 32.6 miles in total — more than the 14.7 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.