BirdTrout
Fennimore Fork, Wisconsin
9.7 mapped river miles, draining 80 square miles, in the Lower Wisconsin 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
The Fennimore Fork is Class II water under Wisconsin DNR, managed as wild supplemented, and 13.0 of its 26.9 NHD miles are typed Cold — 48 per cent, with nothing classed otherwise. Just under half the water classified is a sample rather than a description of the whole. There is no gauge in it and no measured temperature; the class is a classification and this page has no thermometer behind it. The channel is 20.4 feet across at the median, fifth order, draining 79.68 square miles over the 9.7 miles of axis this site maps — a short mapped length against a long NHD one. No block of public land in these files fronts it, no named tributary is recorded along it, and Wisconsin has no access file, so almost everything this page can say about the Fennimore Fork is in its size and its classification.
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 4.8–0.0 | 13.0 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 13.0 of the 27 miles NHD carries for this stream — 48% 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
- Fennimore Fork fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Fennimore Fork — hatches, seasons and temperature
- Fennimore Fork fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class II. The management tier on those reaches is 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
Wisconsin DNR designates this as trout water — Class II — without naming the species. No fish survey or stocking record for this water is in the files this site reads.
Hatches on this water
51 insects are recorded from the Wisconsin driftless, 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 Black Stonefly Allocapnia / Capnia spp. |
January–April | 34–46°F | #16–18 |
| 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 |
| Blue Quill Paraleptophlebia adoptiva |
April–May | 44–56°F | #16–18 |
| Cranefly Tipula spp. |
April–June and September–October | 40–65°F | #6–10 |
| Grannom Brachycentrus spp. |
April–May | 48–58°F | #14–16 |
| Hendrickson Ephemerella subvaria |
April–May | 45–58°F | #12–14 |
| Little Black Caddis Chimarra atterima |
April–May | 46–58°F | #16–20 |
| Caterpillar Lepidoptera larvae |
May–September | 55–75°F | #8–14 |
| Crayfish Orconectes spp. |
May–October | 55–78°F | #4–8 |
| Inchworm Geometridae |
May–June | 50–68°F | #12–16 |
| Light Cahill Maccaffertium ithaca |
May–July | 55–68°F | #12–16 |
And 37 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
Fennimore Fork sits in HUC 8 07070005, the Lower Wisconsin basin, and drains 80 square miles, Strahler order 5 at the mouth. 75 NHD reaches carry the name for 26.9 miles in total — more than the 9.7 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.