BirdTrout

Huron Watershed, Michigan

1,285 miles of mapped stream across 918 square miles of drainage in Livingston, Oakland, Washtenaw, Wayne counties, in 70 named streams. Michigan designates 184 of those miles as trout water, on 12 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 04100013 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,285 mi
of mapped stream
3,625 NHD reaches
918 sq mi
drainage area
587,692 acres
83,965 ac
public land
14.3% of the basin · 654 units

Cold, cool and warm water

MDNR's Valley Segment Ecological Classification, which types the valley segment rather than measuring the water. It covers 8% of this basin's stream miles (106.8 of 1,285); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

0.0 of the 106.8 typed miles in this basin — 0% — 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: low 49.1 mi, medium 41.5 mi, very low 9.7 mi, high 6.4 mi.

What makes this watershed distinctive

The Huron River runs 129.4 miles through this basin and MDNR types it warm along its length. The basin's typed water carries no cold or cold-transitional reaches at all: 59.5 miles warm and 47.3 cool, out of 106.8 typed, which is 8% of the 1,285.2 mapped stream miles. 12 of the 70 named streams are designated trout water over 184.5 miles, and none holds a Blue Ribbon designation. Mill Creek, 20.9 miles of cool water, is the longest stream here that is not typed warm; Honey Creek, 16.9 miles, is untyped. The ground is the story of this watershed as much as the water. 83,961 acres are public — 14.3% of the basin — but they sit in 654 separate units and 53,223 acres of them are local-government land, with the state holding 14,774. MDNR's one survey station here recorded smallmouth bass.

Every named stream in the basin

All 70 of them, longest first. 12 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
Huron River 129.4 Warm — Type 1, Type 2
Mill Creek 20.9 Cool — —
South Ore Creek 18.1 Warm — —
Honey Creek 16.9 untyped — —
Silver Creek 13.5 Warm — Type 1
Portage Creek 13.3 Warm — —
North Fork Mill Creek 11.7 Cool — —
Letts Creek 11.3 Cool — —
Smith Creek 10.9 Warm — —
Arms Creek 8.8 Warm — —
Fleming Creek 8.6 Cool — —
Norton Creek 8.2 Warm — Type 2
Novi Lyon Drain 8.1 Cool — —
Portage River 7.9 Cool — —
Chilson Creek 7.8 Warm — —
Unadilla Stockbridge Drain 7.0 Warm — —
Hay Creek 7.0 untyped — —
Port Creek 6.7 untyped — Type 1
Pettibone Creek 6.6 Warm — —
O'connor Drain 6.6 untyped — —
Woodruff Creek 6.5 untyped — —
Davis Creek 6.5 untyped — —
Cedar Creek 6.0 Cool — —
Mann Creek 5.9 Warm — —
Walker Drain 5.8 untyped — —
Spring Mill Creek 5.6 untyped — —
Livermore Creek 5.4 Warm — —
Swift Drain 5.2 untyped — —
County Ditch Number Seven 4.9 Cool — —
Vandecar Drain 4.3 untyped — Type 1
Wagner Drain 4.3 untyped — —
Chalmers Drain 4.1 untyped — —
Hayes Creek 4.1 untyped — —
Nelson Drain 4.1 Cool — —
Superior Number One Drain 4.0 untyped — —
Snidecar Drain 4.0 untyped — —
Bancroft Noles Drain 3.9 untyped — Type 1
Wagner and Pink Drain 3.8 untyped — Type 1
Throop Number One Drain 3.7 untyped — —
Griggs Drain 3.3 untyped — Type 1
Blackwood Drain 3.3 Cool — —
Jewett Drain 3.3 untyped — —
Regan Drain 3.2 Warm — Type 1
Cass Drain 3.2 untyped — —
Hale Drain 3.0 untyped — Type 1
Warner Drain 3.0 untyped — —
Anderson Drain 2.9 Cool — —
Head Drain 2.9 untyped — —
Hand Drain 2.9 untyped — —
Willow Run 2.8 untyped — —
Bunton Drain 2.7 untyped — Type 1
Hubbard Drain 2.5 untyped — —
McBride Drain 2.4 untyped — Type 1
Lowe Drain 2.3 Warm — —
Morrison Drain 2.0 Warm — —
Reiser Drain 1.9 untyped — —
Wager Drain 1.9 untyped — —
Sherwood Creek 1.8 untyped — —
Baker and Green Drain 1.8 untyped — —
Carter Drain 1.8 untyped — —
Hubert Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Groh Drain 1.6 untyped — —
Sherman Drain 1.6 untyped — —
Brown and Rounds Drain 1.5 untyped — —
Adams Drain 1.3 untyped — —
Van Hountin Drain 1.3 untyped — —
Odette Drain 1.2 untyped — —
Brook Drain 1.0 untyped — —
Reh Drain 1.0 untyped — —
Throop Number Two Drain 0.7 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

83,965 acres in 654 units, which is 14.3% of the 587,692 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 53,223 63% 406
Michigan DNR 14,774 18% 38
Other State Land 3,458 4% 6
City and township land 2,952 4% 55
University of Michigan 1,908 2% 6
Huron Clinton Metro Authority 1,682 2% 1
Washtenaw County 1,186 1% 7
County land 681 1% 8

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 1 survey station 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
Coho salmon
Oncorhynchus kisutch
 48–56°F 40–65°F stocked
Largemouth bass
Micropterus salmoides
 70–80°F 58–88°F stocked
Northern pike
Esox lucius
 60–70°F 40–78°F stocked
Smallmouth bass
Micropterus dolomieu
 67–75°F 55–85°F surveyed
Walleye
Sander vitreus
 62–72°F 50–80°F stocked
Channel catfish — — 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.