BirdTrout
Eighteenmile Creek, Wisconsin
15.9 mapped river miles, draining 29 square miles, in the Bad Montreal basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 14.0 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 14.0 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
Eighteenmile Creek is Class I water under Wisconsin DNR, managed as wild, with 14.9 of its 16.83 NHD miles typed Cold — 89 per cent, and no reach classed anything else. There is no gauge in it; the nearest is on the Namekagon, fourteen miles away. It is 11.6 feet across at the median, third order, draining 29.33 square miles over the 15.9 miles of axis mapped. Public frontage is the strong point: 8.71 miles inside the Chequamegon National Forest, 1.77 through the Bibon Swamp State Natural Area and about three-quarters of a mile more through two statewide habitat parcels — roughly eleven of the sixteen mapped miles with public ground on one side or other. Porcupine Creek, the only named tributary, enters at river mile 10.3.
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 14.1–0.0 | 14.9 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 14.9 of the 16.8 miles NHD carries for this stream — 89% 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
- Eighteenmile Creek fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Eighteenmile Creek — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Eighteenmile Creek — access, parking and public land
- Eighteenmile Creek 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
4 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 960,776 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 |
| Bibon Swamp State Natural Area | state natural-resources agency | 9,614 |
| Statewide Habitat Areas | state natural-resources agency | 1,866 |
| Statewide Habitat Areas - Nw | state natural-resources agency | 800 |
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.
- Porcupine Creek 1.7 mi · RM 10.3
Eighteenmile Creek sits in HUC 8 04010302, the Bad Montreal basin, and drains 29 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 17 NHD reaches carry the name for 16.8 miles in total — more than the 15.9 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.