BirdTrout
Sheboygan River, Wisconsin
17.3 mapped river miles, draining 60 square miles, in the Lakeshore basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 27.6 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 36.1 miles away, at Fox River At Appleton, Wi — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today. A closer gauge has stopped reporting — USGS carries no water-temperature series for it at all, so no number here comes from it.
The character of the water
The Sheboygan is Class I and Class II water under Wisconsin DNR, managed as wild and as wild supplemented, and the thermal classification reaches almost none of it: 4.1 miles typed Cold out of 51.94 NHD miles, 8 per cent. A designation over the whole river and a thermal class over a twelfth of it is the shape of the file here, and nothing should be read into the rest. There is no gauge in it; the nearest is on the Fox, 27.6 miles away. The channel is 13.4 feet across at the median, fourth order, draining 59.7 square miles over the 17.3 miles of axis mapped. Public ground is five acres at Johnsonville fronting a tenth of a mile. Millhome Creek comes in at river mile 12.1 and Otter Creek at 1.1.
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 0.4–0.4 | 4.1 | cold | — |
Wisconsin DNR has classified 4.1 of the 52 miles NHD carries for this stream — 8% 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.
The lake run
The Sheboygan River is a Lake Michigan tributary with 40.7 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 Sheboygan River →
Questions about this river
- Sheboygan River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Sheboygan River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to the Sheboygan River — access, parking and public land
- Sheboygan River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
- Is the Sheboygan River good for brown trout?
- Is the Sheboygan River good for rainbow trout?
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, 5 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Johnsonville Fishing Area & Open Space | county land | 5 |
Species
WDNR has stocked brown trout into this water 12 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 25 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.
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
3 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Otter Creek 4.0 mi · RM 1.1
- Millhome Creek 2.0 mi · RM 12.1
- Schuett Creek 0.0 mi · RM 8.3
Sheboygan River sits in HUC 8 04030101, 04030102, 04030103, 04030203, 04030204 and 04190000, the Lakeshore basin, and drains 60 square miles, Strahler order 4 at the mouth. 49 NHD reaches carry the name for 51.9 miles in total — more than the 17.3 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.