BirdTrout

Clinton Watershed, Michigan

1,458 miles of mapped stream across 797 square miles of drainage in Macomb, Oakland counties, in 128 named streams. Michigan designates 299 of those miles as trout water, on 23 streams.

Open in BirdTrout
Map key
Public land — where the bank is open to walk and fish
USGS gauge — live water temperature
Water temperature — the colour of every stream in the basin

50°F and colder is cold, through cold-transitional and cool, to warm above 70°F — the same four bands the app paints. On this map the colour is MDNR's classification of the valley segment, not a measurement, except at the gauge dots, which read live. Grey is water MDNR has not typed.

The watershed in numbers

HUC8 04090003 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,458 mi
of mapped stream
4,844 NHD reaches
797 sq mi
drainage area
510,065 acres
31,601 ac
public land
6.2% of the basin · 778 units

Cold, cool and warm water

MDNR's Valley Segment Ecological Classification, which types the valley segment rather than measuring the water. It covers 13% of this basin's stream miles (193.4 of 1,458); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

4.4 of the 193.4 typed miles in this basin — 2% — are cold or cold-transitional water. The dominant class is warm.

There is no elevation model behind this page, so it carries no elevation range. MDNR's gradient class is the field that answers the same question, and over the typed miles it reads: medium 100.6 mi, low 42.2 mi, very low 27.1 mi, high 23.5 mi.

What makes this watershed distinctive

This is a warm basin with trout water in it rather than a trout basin. The Clinton River runs 83.2 miles and its North Branch 49.2, and MDNR types both warm; of the 193.4 miles typed across the watershed, 156.7 are warm, 32.3 cool and 4.4 cold-transitional, with no cold water in the sample at all. 23 of the 128 named streams are designated trout water over 299.1 miles, and Bear Creek carries a Blue Ribbon designation. Coverage is 13% of the basin's 1,458.2 mapped stream miles. What separates this watershed from the rest of this map is the ground: 31,601 acres of public land, 6.2% of the basin, and it is broken into 778 separate units — municipal parks, township land and Huron-Clinton Metroparks holdings rather than a state forest. The Michigan DNR holds 3,032 acres of it. Brown trout, rainbow trout and salmon have been stocked; MDNR has no survey station here.

Every named stream in the basin

All 128 of them, longest first. 16 have a page of their own and are linked; the rest are in the app. Thermal class is MDNR's, over the reaches it has typed. "Now" is the live USGS reading where a gauge stands in that stream.

Stream Miles Class Now Designation
Clinton River 83.2 Warm 60.8°F Type 1, Type 2
North Branch Clinton River 49.2 Warm — Type 1, Type 2
East Branch Coon Creek 24.8 Warm — —
Coon Creek 19.6 Warm — Type 1
Stony Creek 19.6 Warm — —
Middle Branch Clinton River 18.1 Warm — Type 1
Paint Creek 16.8 Cold-transitional — Type 2
East Pond Creek 15.3 Cool — Type 2
Tupper Brook 12.8 Warm — —
West Branch Stony Creek 12.7 Cool — —
Newland Drain 11.3 Warm — Type 2
Red Run 10.8 Warm 65.5°F Type 1
Big Beaver Creek 10.4 untyped — —
Deer Creek 10.1 Warm — Type 1
Healy Drain 9.9 Warm — —
Galloway Creek 9.2 Cool — —
Highbank Creek 9.0 untyped — —
Plum Brook 8.6 untyped — —
McBride Drain 8.5 Warm — Type 1
Gibson Drain 8.4 Warm — —
Price Brook 8.4 Warm — —
Miller Drain 7.5 Warm — —
Harrington Drain 6.8 Warm — Type 1
Sturgis Drain 6.7 Warm — —
Trout Creek 6.5 Cool — Type 2
Sargent Creek 6.4 Cool — Type 2
Bear Creek Blue Ribbon 6.1 untyped — —
Camp Brook Drain 6.0 Warm — Type 1
Spencer Drain 5.9 untyped — —
Hart Drain 5.2 Warm — Type 1
Cemetery Creek 5.2 untyped — —
Apel Drain 4.8 Cool — Type 2
Gloede Ditch 4.8 untyped — —
Ray-Lenox Drain 4.7 untyped — —
Old Canal 4.6 untyped — Type 1
Chrissman Drain 4.6 untyped — —
Hill Drain 4.6 untyped — —
Priest Drain 4.0 untyped — —
Paint Creek Drain 3.9 Cool — —
Harrison Drain 3.9 untyped — —
Galloway Ditch 3.8 untyped — —
Yates Drain 3.8 Warm — —
Crittenden Drain 3.8 untyped — —
Utica Drain 3.8 Warm — —
Longstaff Drain 3.7 untyped — —
Banister Drain 3.6 untyped — —
Decker Drain 3.6 untyped — —
Mahaffy Drain 3.5 untyped — Type 2
Lawson Drain 3.4 Warm — —
Armada and Ray Drain 3.4 untyped — —
Krohn Drain 3.2 untyped — —
McClure Drain 3.2 Cool — —
Lane Drain 3.2 untyped — —
Cranberry Marsh Drain 3.1 Warm — Type 1
Hawthorn Drain 3.1 untyped — —
Bowman Ditch 3.1 untyped — —
Harris Drain 3.1 untyped — —
McKay Ditch 3.0 untyped — Type 2
Lewis Ditch 2.9 untyped — —
McCoy Drain 2.8 Warm — —
Moore Drain 2.8 untyped — —
Pontiac Creek 2.7 Warm — —
Heydenreich Drain 2.7 untyped — —
Eckert Drain 2.6 untyped — —
Smith Drain 2.6 untyped — —
Wilcox Drain 2.5 untyped — —
Newth Drain 2.4 untyped — —
Meckler Drain 2.4 untyped — —
Rose Ditch 2.4 untyped — —
Norton Drain 2.4 untyped — —
Kukuk Drain 2.3 Warm — Type 1
Faulman Drain 2.2 Warm — Type 1
Sashabaw Creek 2.2 untyped — —
Shanahan Drain 2.2 untyped — —
Sweeney Drain 2.2 untyped — —
Honeywell Ditch 2.2 untyped — —
Longstaff Drain Number Two 2.2 untyped — —
Cannon Drain 2.2 untyped — —
Wheeler Drain 2.2 untyped — —
Nicol Drain 2.1 untyped — —
Shooke Drain 2.1 untyped — —
Farley Drain 2.0 untyped — —
Zander Drain 1.9 untyped — —
Thoel Drain 1.9 untyped — —
Howard Drain 1.9 untyped — —
Wilson Drain 1.9 untyped — —
Stark Drain 1.8 untyped — —
Woodbeck Drain 1.8 untyped — —
Wyman Drain 1.7 untyped — Type 1
Deiner Ditch 1.7 untyped — —
Macomb Ditch 1.7 untyped — —
Gamble Drain 1.6 untyped — —
Bark Drain 1.6 untyped — —
Pingle Drain 1.5 untyped — —
Kenner Drain 1.5 untyped — —
Steinbrink Drain 1.5 untyped — —
Hawald Drain 1.5 untyped — —
Preston Drain 1.5 Warm — —
Daus Drain 1.4 untyped — —
Tilch Drain 1.4 untyped — —
Feiblecorn Drain 1.4 untyped — —
Conklin Drain 1.4 Warm — —
Caflic Drain 1.4 untyped — —
Hahn Drain 1.3 untyped — —
Mount Vernon Drain 1.3 untyped — —
Knust Drain 1.3 untyped — —
Groth Drain 1.2 untyped — —
Shoemaker Drain 1.2 untyped — —
Dixon Drain 1.2 untyped — —
Robinson Ditch 1.1 untyped — —
Hammon Drain 1.1 untyped — —
Harder Drain 1.1 untyped — —
Heide Drain 1.1 untyped — —
Anderson Drain 1.1 untyped — —
Cass Drain 1.0 untyped — —
Tesk Drain 1.0 untyped — —
Bobcean Drain 0.9 untyped — —
Hildebrandt Drain 0.9 untyped — —
Alwardt Drain 0.9 untyped — —
Disco Drain 0.9 untyped — —
Dunn Drain 0.8 untyped — —
Arndt Drain 0.8 untyped — —
Lewis Drain 0.8 untyped — —
Rabe Drain 0.8 untyped — —
Parker Drain 0.8 untyped — —
King Drain 0.7 untyped — —
McInerney Drain 0.6 untyped — —
Hafel Drain 0.6 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

31,601 acres in 778 units, which is 6.2% of the 510,065 acres the basin covers. Private inholdings carried in the same source file are excluded, here and on the map.

Managing agency Acres Share Units
Local Government land 17,716 56% 574
Huron-Clinton Metroparks 3,581 11% 2
City and township land 3,471 11% 100
Michigan DNR 3,032 10% 25
Oakland County Parks 914 3% 1
Local government land 509 2% 2
Waterford Parks 339 1% 1
Oakland County Parks and Recreation 282 1% 1

The biggest named blocks of it, each with its own page — the streams on that ground, what is open to hunt on it, and where the access sites are.

Species present

Recorded by MDNR at 0 survey stations in this basin, or in its stocking record. The temperature ranges are our own species table and are the same numbers the app's picker uses.

Species Best water Tolerates Evidence
Brown trout
Salmo trutta
 55–63°F 45–70°F stocked
Rainbow trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss
 55–64°F 44–70°F stocked
Chinook salmon
Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
 50–58°F 42–68°F stocked
Coho salmon
Oncorhynchus kisutch
 48–56°F 40–65°F stocked
Walleye
Sander vitreus
 62–72°F 50–80°F stocked
Mottled sculpin — — stocked

Best time to fish

The hatch calendar for southern lower Michigan, which is the region this basin's centre falls in — the same regions the app's hatch panel uses. It is a regional record, not a survey of this watershed: nobody has counted insects basin by basin. Year-round records (midges, scuds, sculpins) are left out; they are true every month and they are not what a calendar is for.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

47 insects are recorded from southern lower Michigan. Each links to its own page, with the flies that imitate it.

Neighbouring watersheds

The subbasins that share a boundary with this one and carry coldwater streams.

Plan a weekend around it

The weekend this basin adds up to — the biggest water in it, what is hatching when, the public land in range and a three-day plan.