BirdTrout
Plover River, Wisconsin
17.6 mapped river miles, draining 120 square miles, in the Castle Rock basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 28.9 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 28.9 miles away, at Red River At Morgan Road Near Morgan, Wi — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today.
The character of the water
The Plover carries all three of Wisconsin DNR's classes — Class I, Class II and Class III, managed as wild, wild supplemented and stocked — and the thermal typing runs Cold ahead of Cool by four to one: 30.1 miles against 7.5, out of 37.6 typed, 57 per cent of its 66.13 NHD miles. Just over half the river classified is a sample, and these pages cannot say which end each class falls on. There is no gauge in it and no measured temperature. The channel is 19.2 feet across at the median, fourth order, draining 120.3 square miles over the 17.6 miles of axis mapped. Public ground is two overlapping spring-pond parcels fronting two-thirds of a mile each. Pike Lake Creek comes in at river mile 9.6.
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 17.6–6.8 | 30.1 | cold | — |
| RM 0.0–0.0 | 7.5 | cool | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 37.6 of the 66 miles NHD carries for this stream — 57% of it. The typed water splits 30.1 mi cold, 7.5 mi cool. 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.
Named stretches
Anglers name parts of this river. These are the names two or more independent sources use; each page says which sources, because a nickname is the one thing on this site that is not a measurement.
- The Plover Artificial-Only Water — The Plover near Bevent: sand and gravel, tag alder to the bank, wild browns below and brook trout in the upper reaches, under an artificial-lure rule with a split size limit. The regulation covers part of the stream, not all of it — the extent above is the agency's wording. What is drawn here is the whole named stream, because there is no boundary anywhere we could check it against.
Questions about this river
- Plover River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Plover River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to the Plover River — access, parking and public land
- Plover River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
- Is the Plover River good for brook trout?
Wisconsin DNR classification
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class I, 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, 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
2 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 1,550 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Statewide Spring Ponds | state natural-resources agency | 1,197 |
| Statewide Spring Ponds - Wd | state natural-resources agency | 353 |
Species
WDNR has stocked brook trout into this water 3 times between 2015 and 2017. 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
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
1 named stream meets this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
Plover River sits in HUC 8 07070003, the Castle Rock basin, and drains 120 square miles, Strahler order 4 at the mouth. 72 NHD reaches carry the name for 66.1 miles in total — more than the 17.6 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.