BirdTrout

Kalamazoo Watershed, Michigan

2,157 miles of mapped stream across 2,032 square miles of drainage in Allegan, Calhoun, Eaton, Hillsdale, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Van Buren counties, in 99 named streams. Michigan designates 544 of those miles as trout water, on 38 streams. The 2 mainstem gauges with a July record read between 65.0 and 77.6°F in July.

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 04050003 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

2,157 mi
of mapped stream
3,242 NHD reaches
2,032 sq mi
drainage area
1,300,195 acres
65.0–77.6°F
July water temperature at the gauges
2 mainstem gauges, mean 71.3°F
70,102 ac
public land
5.4% of the basin · 475 units

Cold, cool and warm water

MDNR's Valley Segment Ecological Classification, which types the valley segment rather than measuring the water. It covers 35% of this basin's stream miles (760.9 of 2,157); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

115.3 of the 760.9 typed miles in this basin — 15% — are cold or cold-transitional water. The dominant class is cool.

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 267.0 mi, low 229.5 mi, very low 139.5 mi, high 124.9 mi.

What makes this watershed distinctive

2,032 square miles and 2,156.9 mapped stream miles, of which MDNR has typed 35% — one of the better samples on this map. Across those 760.9 miles the water is 431.4 cool, 214.3 warm, 62.7 cold and 52.6 cold-transitional. The Kalamazoo River runs 130.4 miles warm and carries Type 4 water; the Rabbit River, 61.6 miles, types cool and also holds Type 4 reaches; Battle Creek and the South Branch Kalamazoo add another 97 miles of cool water. 38 of the 99 named streams are designated trout water over 544.5 miles, and Bear Creek is Blue Ribbon. Public ground is scarce here — 70,102 acres, 5.4% of the basin, across 475 units, with 44,631 acres of state land among them. Two gauges hold a July record and they disagree sharply, reading 65.0 and 77.6°F; both are on the mainstem, and the spread is the useful number rather than the average of the two.

Every named stream in the basin

All 99 of them, longest first. 19 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
Kalamazoo River 130.4 Warm 64.0°F Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Rabbit River 61.6 Cool — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Battle Creek 49.6 Cool — —
South Branch Kalamazoo River 47.4 Cool — Type 2
North Branch Kalamazoo River 26.2 Warm — —
Wabascon Creek 24.9 Cool — —
Bear Creek Blue Ribbon 23.5 Cold-transitional — Type 1, Type 2
Wanadoga Creek 21.2 Warm — —
Swan Creek 20.3 Cold-transitional — Type 1, Type 2
Miller Creek 18.9 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Augusta Creek 17.7 Cool — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Gun River 15.1 Cool — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
South Branch Rice Creek 15.0 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Indian Creek 13.8 Cool — —
North Branch Rice Creek 13.2 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Black Creek 12.8 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Spring Brook 12.8 Cold — Type 2
Sand Creek 11.8 Cold — Type 2
Portage Creek 11.2 Cool — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Little Rabbit River 11.0 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Minges Brook 10.7 Cool — Type 2
Pigeon Creek 10.6 Cool — Type 2
Schnable Brook 10.4 untyped — —
Red Run 10.4 Cool — —
Silver Creek 10.2 Cold — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Pine Creek 10.1 Cold — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Wilder Creek 9.4 Cold-transitional — —
Mann Creek 8.7 Cold-transitional — Type 2, Type 4
West Fork Portage Creek 8.7 Warm — —
Big Creek 8.6 Warm — —
Harper Creek 8.5 Warm — Type 2
State and Indian Creek Drain 8.5 Warm — —
Base Line Creek 7.5 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Rossman Creek 7.2 Warm — —
Rice Creek 7.1 Cold-transitional — Type 1, Type 2
Sevenmile Creek 7.0 untyped — Type 2
Davis Creek 7.0 Cool — —
Crooked Brook 6.9 untyped — —
Comstock Creek 5.8 Cool — —
Dickinson Creek 5.6 Cold-transitional 60.1°F Type 2
Ackley Creek 5.5 Cool — —
Miner Creek 5.5 untyped — —
Dumont Creek 5.1 Warm — —
Dorr and Byron Drain 5.0 Cool — —
Hogle and Miller Ditch 4.8 untyped — —
Buskirk Creek 4.7 untyped — Type 1, Type 2
Greggs Brook 4.7 Cool — —
Ellis Creek 4.5 Cool — Type 2
Peach Orchard Creek 4.0 Warm — Type 1
Crooked Creek 4.0 Cool — —
Gull Creek 3.7 Cool — —
Eaton and Baker Drain 3.6 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Talmadge Creek 3.6 Warm — —
School Section Brook 3.6 Cool — —
Veley Drain 3.6 untyped — —
Big Dailey Bayou 3.4 Warm — Type 1
Dillon Relaid Drain 3.4 Warm — —
Spring Run Drain 3.4 Cold — —
Orangeville Creek 3.2 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Severence Creek 3.2 Cool — —
Lampson Run Drain 3.2 Cool — —
Swains Lake Drain 3.1 Cool — —
Cave Creek 3.0 Cold — Type 2
McIlwain and Extension Drain 2.9 Cool — —
Barnum Creek 2.8 Cool — —
Fenner Creek 2.7 Cool — Type 1, Type 2
Osgood Drain 2.7 untyped — —
Tannery Creek 2.4 Warm — —
East Cedar Lake Drain 2.4 Warm — —
Brickyard Creek 2.3 untyped — Type 2
Goshorn Creek 2.3 Cool — —
Pretty Branch Drain 2.3 untyped — —
Goldspring Drain 2.2 untyped — —
Mitchell Drain 2.2 untyped — —
Winks Branch 2.2 Cool — —
Champion Drain 2.2 Cool — —
Fales Drain 2.1 untyped — —
Duck Lake Ditch 2.0 Warm — —
Sager Lake Drain 1.9 Cold — Type 2
Arcadia Creek 1.9 untyped — —
Odawa Brook 1.9 untyped — —
East Page Ditch 1.9 untyped — —
Worthington and Billman Drain 1.9 untyped — —
Huckleberry Drain 1.8 Cool — —
Conger Drain 1.8 untyped — —
Dolbee Branch Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Ball and Patterson Drain 1.5 Cool — —
Cuddy Drain 1.5 Cool — —
McIntire Lake Drain 1.3 Cold — Type 2
Willow Creek 1.3 Cool — —
Spring Arbor and Concord Drain 1.3 Warm — —
Benham Drain 1.3 untyped — —
Devil Lake Ditch 1.2 untyped — —
Tollenbar Drain 1.0 untyped — —
Carpenter and Extension Drain 0.8 Cool — —
Morrison Bayou 0.7 untyped — Type 1
Palmer Bayou 0.6 untyped — Type 1
Romans Drain 0.3 untyped — —
Axtell Creek 0.1 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

70,102 acres in 475 units, which is 5.4% of the 1,300,195 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 44,631 64% 63
Local Government land 9,927 14% 169
Michigan State University 2,812 4% 3
Other State Land 2,110 3% 4
City and township land 1,888 3% 52
Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy 1,088 2% 16
Michigan Audubon Society 1,047 1% 3
State Dept. of Land 911 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 2 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
Brook trout
Salvelinus fontinalis
 50–60°F 42–65°F stocked
Brown trout
Salmo trutta
 55–63°F 45–70°F surveyed 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
Northern pike
Esox lucius
 60–70°F 40–78°F stocked
Smallmouth bass
Micropterus dolomieu
 67–75°F 55–85°F surveyed stocked
Walleye
Sander vitreus
 62–72°F 50–80°F stocked
Channel catfish — — stocked
Lake sturgeon — — stocked
Redear sunfish — — stocked
Tiger muskellunge — — 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.