BirdTroutOpen the map Is the Spirit River good for brown trout?
Yes, on the classification rather than on a thermometer. WDNR has stocked brown trout into the Spirit River across 10 recorded plants, between 2015 and 2022, and WDNR classes most of its typed water as cold — but no USGS gauge on this river reports water temperature, so this site has no measured July mean to hold against the 54–66 °F band this fish wants. 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
No USGS gauge on this river reports water temperature, so there is no measured July mean to put beside the species' band. WDNR's classification of the typed reaches is Cold, and that is a classification rather than a thermometer.
What you may keep
Wisconsin DNR classifies this water as Class II, Class III. The management tier on those reaches is stocked, 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 Spirit River
Spirit River — live water temperature, regulations and access