BirdTrout

Upper Pine Creek, Wisconsin

18.1 mapped river miles, draining 39 square miles, in the Red Cedar basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 34.0 miles away, and what this page knows about its temperature is Wisconsin DNR's classification of the water itself.

Open in BirdTrout →

Public land — where the bank is open to walk and fish

USGS gauge — live water temperature

Water temperature — the colour of the river, and of every dot on it

58 64 70

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 34.4 miles away, at Eau Galle River At Spring Valley, Wi — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today. A closer gauge has stopped reporting — its water-temperature series is empty, and was last stamped 23 December 2024, so no number here comes from it.

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.

Wisconsin DNR has classified 16.7 of the 19.0 miles NHD carries for this stream — 88% 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

• Upper Pine Creek fishing report — what it reads right now
• When to fish Upper Pine Creek — hatches, seasons and temperature
• How to get to Upper Pine Creek — access, parking and public land
• Upper Pine Creek fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
• Is Upper Pine Creek good for brown 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, 119 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.

Species

• Brown Trout stocked only

WDNR has stocked brown trout into this water 5 times between 2015 and 2019. 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.

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.

• East Branch Upper Pine Creek 5.9 mi · RM 10.8

Upper Pine Creek sits in HUC 8 07050007, the Red Cedar basin, and drains 39 square miles, Strahler order 4 at the mouth. 33 NHD reaches carry the name for 19.0 miles in total — more than the 18.1 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.

• Lower Pine Creek 0.7 mi
• Sioux Creek 1.0 mi
• East Branch Upper Pine Creek 1.4 mi
• North Branch Upper Pine Creek 2.4 mi
• Tiller Creek 2.4 mi
• South Fork Lower Pine Creek 4.3 mi