BirdTrout
Oconto River, Wisconsin
14.2 mapped river miles, draining 683 square miles, in the Oconto basin watershed. 1 USGS gauge report water temperature on it, and this page reads it.
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.
Water temperature right now
Live from the USGS — every pill above is live, so the numbers you are reading are the latest continuous readings at each gauge. Provisional and unreviewed, as all real-time data is. If that fetch cannot happen — you are offline, or the USGS is down — the pills fall back to the last value we cached, 30 September 2026, 13:46 UTC.
The character of the water
Sixth order and 61.2 feet across at the median, draining 682.84 square miles, the Oconto is a river rather than a stream, and Wisconsin DNR designates it under two classes at once — Class II and Class III, managed as wild supplemented and as stocked. The gauge near Oconto stands at the mouth and averages 74.7 °F in July over four years of record, 2022 to 2026, with a 16.4-degree spread between them and low groundwater behind it. It reads the warmest water in its reach, so the upper river is colder than that figure, but there is no second gauge here to say by how much. No block of public land on our map fronts the 14.2 miles of axis mapped, and no named tributary is recorded entering it along that length. The absence of an access file for Wisconsin means this page can say nothing about landings either way.
Thermal classification
Each gauge carries a July mean built from its own daily record — 4 Julys, 2022–2026, measured rather than modelled. A July mean is what decides which of the four bands a stretch of water belongs to, because July is when a trout river either holds or does not.
| Reach | July mean | Band | Groundwater |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Oconto RM 14.2–0.0 |
74.7 °F | warm | low |
Every gauge sits at the bottom of its segment, so each number is the warm end and the water above it runs colder. ±2.42 °F on the fit.
The lake run
The Oconto River is a Lake Michigan tributary with 14.0 miles of run corridor on it — salmon, steelhead and lake-run brown trout, on their own calendar and under their own rules. Run timing, species and access on the Oconto River →
Questions about this river
- Oconto River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Oconto River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- Oconto River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
- Is the Oconto River good for brook trout?
- Is the Oconto River good for brown trout?
- Is the Oconto River good for rainbow trout?
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class II and Class III. 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 stocked, 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 →
Fishable reaches
River miles are measured above the mouth, along the mapped mainstem. The reach breaks are the gauges, which is also how the temperature model divides the river.
| Reach | Miles | July mean | Access on it |
|---|---|---|---|
|
RM 14.2–0.0 down to Oconto |
115.5 | 74.7 °F | — |
0 mapped access sites on the mainstem: 0 walk-in, 0 boat or canoe launches.
USGS gauges
Every gauge on the mainstem, upstream first. Links go to the USGS monitoring-location page for the site.
-
Oconto River near Oconto
— 04071765 · RM 0.0
124 July days of record across 4 Julys (2022–2026) · 226 cfs at last read
Species
WDNR has stocked brook trout into this water 14 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 brown trout into this water 38 times between 2015 and 2025. 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 28 times between 2015 and 2025. That is a stocking record rather than a survey — it says the fish were put in, not that a survey has found them since.
Historical July mean
The measured record behind every temperature band on this page: the mean of the daily means for July, at each gauge, over the years USGS has one.
| Gauge | July mean | July range | Julys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oconto | 74.7 °F | 16.4 °F | 4 |
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
Oconto River sits in HUC 8 04030104, the Oconto basin, and drains 683 square miles, Strahler order 6 at the mouth. 57 NHD reaches carry the name for 41.8 miles in total — more than the 14.2 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.