BirdTroutOpen the map Is the Peshtigo River good for brown trout?
Not in midsummer, and not everywhere. WDNR has stocked brown trout into the Peshtigo River across 22 recorded plants, between 2015 and 2025, but the river's measured July mean of 75.5 °F is above the 75 °F upper limit for this fish, so the water that holds it is the cold tributary mouths and the spring-fed stretches rather than the mainstem in July. That is a stocking record and not a survey: it says WDNR put the fish in, not that anyone has since found one holding over. Fish of 8–16 inches are what Wisconsin reports as typical.
What the state's records say
- Species
- Brown trout (Salmo trutta)
- In Wisconsin
- introduced
- Record here
- stocked — no survey record on this water
- Holds in
- 54–66 °F, stops feeding above 75 °F
- Typical
- 8–16 inches
- Spawns
- Late October into December, on gravel riffles, later in the season than the rainbow and overlapping the brook trout.
Introduced in the 1880s and now the fish most driftless spring creeks are managed for, reproducing without help across most of that footprint.
Is the water cold enough
Measured, not modelled: 1 gauged stretch of this river average 75.5 °F in July , against the 54–66 °F this fish holds in and the 75 °F it stops feeding at.
| Gauge | Now | July mean |
|---|---|---|
| Peshtigo | 64.8 °F | 75.5 °F |
What you may keep
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class II. The management tier on those reaches is wild supplemented. This is a designation of the fishery and not the season and creel rules.
WDNR trout stream classification → Wisconsin season and creel rules →
What to fish for it
- Fish Eggs — October–January and April, #10–16
- Little Brown Stonefly — February–April, #12–16
- Blue-Winged Olive — March–May and September–November, #16–22
- Blackfly — April–June, #18–22
- Cranefly — April–June and September–October, #6–10
- Grannom — April–May, #14–16
- Green Rock Worm / Green Weenie — April–June and September–October, #10–14
- Hendrickson — April–May, #12–14
The insects recorded from this river's region, earliest first. The full calendar →
More about Peshtigo River
Peshtigo River — live water temperature, regulations and access