BirdTrout
Otter Creek, Wisconsin
19.1 mapped river miles, draining 111 square miles, in the Lower Wisconsin basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 19.3 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 19.3 miles away, at Black Earth Ck Nr Treatment Plnt @ Cross Plains,wi — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today.
The character of the water
Otter Creek is Class I and Class II water under Wisconsin DNR, managed as wild and as wild supplemented, and the thermal classification reaches under a third of it: 14.2 miles typed Cold out of 49.19 NHD miles, 29 per cent, with nothing classed otherwise. There is no gauge in it and no measured temperature. The channel is 18 feet across at the median, fifth order, draining 110.97 square miles over the 19.1 miles of axis mapped. One block of public ground fronts it and it is a substantial one: Baxter's Hollow, 6,160 acres, with 3.16 miles of the creek inside it — about a sixth of the mapped length. No named tributary is recorded entering along it, and Wisconsin has no access file, so where else the bank is open is not a question these pages can answer.
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 19.1–0.1 | 14.2 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 14.2 of the 49 miles NHD carries for this stream — 29% 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
- Otter Creek fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Otter Creek — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Otter Creek — access, parking and public land
- Otter Creek fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class I and Class II. 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 wild, 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 →
Public land on the river
1 unit of public or open-access land touches this river, 6,160 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Baxter's Hollow | land trust or conservancy | 6,160 |
Species
Wisconsin DNR designates this as trout water — Class I, 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
Otter Creek sits in HUC 8 07070005, the Lower Wisconsin basin, and drains 111 square miles, Strahler order 5 at the mouth. 63 NHD reaches carry the name for 49.2 miles in total — more than the 19.1 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.