BirdTrout
Kinnickinnic River, Wisconsin
16.4 mapped river miles, draining 117 square miles, in the St Croix 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 nearest live reading
The nearest gauge is 16.4 miles away, at Eau Galle River At Spring Valley, Wi — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today.
The character of the water
The Kinnickinnic is Class I water under Wisconsin DNR's designation, managed as wild, and the agency has typed 30.4 miles of it as Cold — 73 per cent of its 41.86 NHD miles, with every typed reach carrying the same class. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is on the St Croix, 33.2 miles off, and that is a different river. Ten blocks of public ground front the water, 2,257 acres in all, and the frontage is the number that matters here rather than the acreage: 6.85 miles of the river run inside the Kinnickinnic River Fishery Area alone, another 2.15 through Stream Bank Protection Fee Program land, with Leroy Park, the White Kinnickinnic Pathway and two further pieces of the fishery area adding a few hundred yards each. Parker Creek, nine miles of it, comes in at river mile 11.4. The South Fork meets the river at its 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 16.4–0.0 | 30.4 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 30.4 of the 42 miles NHD carries for this stream — 73% 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
- Kinnickinnic River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Kinnickinnic River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to the Kinnickinnic River — access, parking and public land
- Kinnickinnic River 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
10 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 2,257 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Kinnickinnic River Fishery Area | state natural-resources agency | 1,218 |
| Stream Bank Protection Fee Program | state natural-resources agency | 853 |
| Kinnickinnic River Fishery Area | another state agency | 11 |
| White Kinnickinnic Pathway | city land | 6 |
| Leroy Park | city land | 12 |
| Kinnickinnic River Fishery Area 9 | state natural-resources agency | 113 |
| Heritage Park | city land | 1 |
| Western Prairie Habitat Restoration Area | state natural-resources agency | 1 |
| Veterans' Park | city land | 0 |
| Glen Park | city land | 41 |
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
6 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Parker Creek 9.2 mi · RM 11.4
- South Fork Kinnickinnic River 8.9 mi · RM 0.0
- South Branch Kinnickinnic River 6.2 mi · RM 16.4
- Nye Creek 3.4 mi · RM 9.0
- Ted Creek 2.7 mi · RM 8.4
- Kelly Creek 1.6 mi · RM 10.5
Kinnickinnic River sits in HUC 8 07030001, 07030002 and 07030005, the St Croix basin, and drains 117 square miles, Strahler order 5 at the mouth. 90 NHD reaches carry the name for 41.9 miles in total — more than the 16.4 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.