BirdTrout
Pine Creek, Wisconsin
5.7 mapped river miles, draining 21 square miles, in the Nemadji basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 19.8 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 19.8 miles away, at Bad River Near Odanah, Wi — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today.
The character of the water
The Nemadji basin's Pine Creek is short and wholly cold: 5.7 miles typed, effectively all of its 5.67 NHD miles, every one classed Cold, under Wisconsin DNR's Class I designation and managed as wild. There is no gauge in it; the nearest is on the Bois Brule, 25.9 miles away. It is 13.0 feet across at the median, third order, draining 20.51 square miles over the 5.7 miles of axis mapped. Public ground touches it lightly — 0.54 of a mile inside the Chequamegon National Forest and 0.15 through the South Shore of Lake Superior fish and wildlife area, two-thirds of a mile of frontage in all. Little Pine Creek comes in at river mile 2.1, and the creek runs into North Fish Creek at the mouth.
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 5.7–0.0 | 5.7 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 5.7 of the 5.7 miles NHD carries for this stream — 101% 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
- Pine Creek fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Pine Creek — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Pine Creek — access, parking and public land
- Pine Creek 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
2 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 954,948 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Chequamegon National Forest | U.S. Forest Service | 948,495 |
| South Shore Lake Superior Fish | state natural-resources agency | 6,453 |
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
2 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
Pine Creek sits in HUC 8 04010301, the Nemadji basin, and drains 21 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 12 NHD reaches carry the name for 5.7 miles in total.
Other water nearby
The closest 6 rivers on this site, straight-line from the middle of this one — not drive time.