BirdTrout

Dead-Kelsey Watershed, Michigan

1,731 miles of mapped stream across 909 square miles of drainage, in 103 named streams. Michigan designates 656 of those miles as trout water, on 96 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 04020105 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,731 mi
of mapped stream
3,826 NHD reaches
909 sq mi
drainage area
581,801 acres
99,282 ac
public land
17.1% of the basin · 103 units

Cold, cool and warm water

MDNR's Valley Segment Ecological Classification, which types the valley segment rather than measuring the water. It covers 9% of this basin's stream miles (150.2 of 1,731); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

133.7 of the 150.2 typed miles in this basin — 89% — are cold or cold-transitional water. The dominant class is cold.

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: high 141.3 mi, medium 6.8 mi, low 1.9 mi, very low 0.2 mi.

What makes this watershed distinctive

96 of the 103 named streams in this basin are designated trout water — the highest proportion on this map — over 656 miles of a 1,731.4-mile network. The typed water is almost uniformly cold: 132 of 150.2 miles, with 16.5 cool and 1.7 cold-transitional, and 141.3 of those typed miles run at high gradient. That is a steep, cold sample, and it is a sample: MDNR has classified 9% of the basin's stream miles. The Dead River runs 45.4 miles cold, the Yellow Dog 32.4, the Salmon Trout 20.7, and the Silver River 24.9 miles cold with Type 4 water on it. The Carp River, 23.6 miles, types cold-transitional and also carries Type 4 reaches. The Iron and Pine rivers hold Blue Ribbon designations. Public ground is 99,282 acres, 17.1% of the basin, split between state land, national forest and local holdings. No gauge here carries a July record.

Every named stream in the basin

All 103 of them, longest first. 46 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
Dead River 45.4 Cold — Type 2
Yellow Dog River 32.4 Cold — Type 2
Silver River 24.9 Cold — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Carp River 23.6 Cold-transitional — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Salmon Trout River 20.7 Cold 48.2°F Type 2
Ravine River 16.2 Cold — Type 1, Type 2
Mulligan Creek 14.5 Cold — Type 2
West Branch Huron River 14.5 untyped — Type 2
Slate River 13.8 Cold — Type 2, Type 4
Carp Creek 13.3 Cold — Type 2
East Branch Huron River 12.4 Cold — Type 2
Big Garlic River 11.3 untyped — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Ogemaw Creek 10.6 untyped — Type 2
Little Garlic River 10.6 Cold — Type 2
Wilson Creek 10.1 untyped — Type 2
Boise Creek 9.6 Cold — Type 2
Daults Creek 9.4 untyped — Type 2
Barnhardt Creek 9.3 untyped — Type 2
Bismark Creek 9.2 Cold — Type 2
Little Carp River 9.1 Cold — Type 2
Clark Creek 8.9 untyped — Type 2
Sixmile Creek 8.4 Cold — Type 2
Little Dead River 8.4 untyped — Type 2
Reany Creek 8.2 untyped — Type 2
Little Huron River 8.0 Cold — Type 2
East Branch Salmon Trout River 7.9 untyped 48.0°F Type 2
Pages Creek 7.6 Cold — Type 2
Huron River 7.5 untyped — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Morgan Creek 7.5 untyped — Type 2, Type 4
Taylor Creek 7.3 untyped — Type 2
Little West Branch Huron River 7.3 Cool — Type 2
Kelsey Creek 7.3 Cold — Type 2
Fossom Creek 7.0 Cold — Type 2
East Branch Silver River 6.9 Cold — Type 2
Gold Mine Creek 6.8 untyped — Type 2
Linden Creek 6.7 Cold — Type 2
Roubillard Creek 6.7 Cold — Type 2
Cliff River 6.5 Cold — Type 2
Denomie Creek 6.4 untyped — Type 2
Nash Creek 6.3 Cold — Type 2
Cedar Creek 6.2 untyped — Type 2
Big Pup Creek 6.0 untyped — Type 2
Dakota Creek 5.8 Cold — Type 2
Alder Creek 5.8 Cold — Type 2
Johnson Creek 5.6 untyped — Type 2
Gomanche Creek 5.6 Cold 50.0°F Type 2
Lost Creek 5.5 untyped — Type 2
Robarge Creek 5.5 Cold — Type 2
Iron River Blue Ribbon 5.2 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Falls River 5.1 untyped 50.2°F Type 2, Type 4
Pine River Blue Ribbon 5.0 Cool — Type 2
Connors Creek 4.9 Cold — Type 2
Harlow Creek 4.8 untyped — Type 1, Type 2
Little Pup Creek 4.6 untyped — Type 2
Menge Creek 4.4 untyped — Type 2
Burns Creek 4.2 Cold — Type 2
Little East Branch Huron River 4.2 Cold — Type 2
Elm Creek 4.2 untyped — Type 2
Compeau Creek 4.2 untyped — Type 2
Gulskoog Creek 3.9 Cold — Type 2
Peterson Creek 3.7 Cold — Type 2
Page Creek 3.5 Cold — Type 2
Snake Creek 3.4 untyped — Type 2
Willow Creek 3.4 untyped — Type 2
Black Creek 3.3 untyped — Type 2
Deer Creek 3.2 Cold — Type 2
Clear Creek 3.2 untyped — Type 2
Nesters Creek 3.1 untyped — Type 2
Pekkala Creek 3.1 Cold — Type 2
Little Silver Creek 3.1 untyped — Type 2
Midway Creek 3.0 untyped — Type 2
Zhulkie Creek 2.9 Cold — Type 2
Larson Creek 2.8 Cold — Type 2
Voelkers Creek 2.8 Cold — Type 2
Fisher Creek 2.7 untyped — Type 2
Birch Creek 2.7 Cold — Type 2
Sullivan Creek 2.5 Cold — Type 2
Holyoke Creek 2.5 Cold — —
Wildcat Canyon Creek 2.4 Cold — Type 2
Whetstone Brook 2.4 untyped — Type 2
Partridge Creek 2.3 untyped — —
Orianna Brook 2.2 Cold — Type 2
Mink Run 2.1 untyped — Type 2
Silver Creek 2.1 Cold — Type 2
East Branch Snake Creek 2.1 untyped — Type 2
Beaver Farm Creek 2.1 Cold — Type 2
Westren Brook 1.9 untyped — Type 2
Leviture Creek 1.9 untyped — Type 2
Sawmill Creek 1.9 untyped — Type 2
Hazel Creek 1.8 untyped — Type 2
Mountain Stream 1.8 untyped — Type 2
West Branch Salmon Trout River 1.8 untyped — Type 2
Outlet Creek 1.8 Cold — Type 2
Conway Creek 1.5 Cool — Type 2
Nealy Creek 1.4 untyped — Type 2
Cooper Creek 1.3 untyped — —
Coles Creek 1.2 untyped — —
Rush Creek 1.1 Cold — Type 2
River Styx 1.0 untyped — Type 2
Jarvi Creek 0.9 untyped — Type 2
Boyles Creek 0.9 untyped — —
Bob Creek 0.9 untyped — —
Spring Creek 0.4 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

99,282 acres in 103 units, which is 17.1% of the 581,801 acres the basin covers. Private inholdings carried in the same source file are excluded, here and on the map.

Managing agency Acres Share Units
Michigan DNR 48,335 49% 19
US Forest Service 19,804 20% 4
Local Government land 13,967 14% 28
Owner not recorded 7,173 7% 1
The Nature Conservancy 5,035 5% 5
Keweenaw Land Trust 1,387 1% 3
City of Marquette 1,017 1% 2
Land trusts and conservancies 587 1% 6

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.

Best time to fish

The hatch calendar for the Upper Peninsula, 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

42 insects are recorded from the Upper Peninsula. 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.