BirdTrout
Little Platte River, Wisconsin
19.2 mapped river miles, draining 133 square miles, in the Grant Platte 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 Little Platte Class II, managed as wild supplemented, and the thermal classification reaches almost none of it: 4.5 miles typed Cold out of 34.39 NHD miles, 13 per cent. That is the shape of the file here — a designation over the whole water and a thermal class over an eighth of it — and nothing should be read into the seven-eighths that is unclassified. There is no gauge in it and no measured temperature. The river is 18.3 feet across at the median, fifth order, draining 133.47 square miles over the 19.2 miles of axis mapped. No block of public land in these files fronts it and Wisconsin has no access file. Five named branches come in, all of them short, between river miles 7.7 and 19.0.
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 19.2–19.2 | 4.5 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 4.5 of the 34 miles NHD carries for this stream — 13% 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
- Little Platte River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Little Platte River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- Little Platte River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
- Is the Little Platte River good for brown trout?
- Is the Little Platte River good for rainbow trout?
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
WDNR has stocked brown trout into this water 18 times between 2015 and 2024. That is a stocking record rather than a survey — it says the fish were put in, not that a survey has found them since.
WDNR has stocked rainbow trout into this water 2 times between 2018 and 2019. 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
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
6 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Blockhouse Creek 14.4 mi · RM 0.0
- Rountree Branch 9.8 mi · RM 12.3
- Whig Branch 4.5 mi · RM 7.7
- Young Branch 3.8 mi · RM 13.0
- Bear Branch 3.6 mi · RM 17.0
- Mounds Branch 1.4 mi · RM 19.0
Little Platte River sits in HUC 8 07060003, the Grant Platte basin, and drains 133 square miles, Strahler order 5 at the mouth. 75 NHD reaches carry the name for 34.4 miles in total — more than the 19.2 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.