BirdTrout

Manistique River Watershed, Michigan

1,659 miles of mapped stream across 1,472 square miles of drainage, in 112 named streams. Michigan designates 742 of those miles as trout water, on 70 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 04030113 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,659 mi
of mapped stream
5,086 NHD reaches
1,472 sq mi
drainage area
942,021 acres
447,219 ac
public land
47.5% of the basin · 68 units

Cold, cool and warm water

MDNR's Valley Segment Ecological Classification, which types the valley segment rather than measuring the water. It covers 33% of this basin's stream miles (552.5 of 1,659); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

153.5 of the 552.5 typed miles in this basin — 28% — 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: low 267.5 mi, very low 181.3 mi, medium 88.4 mi, high 15.3 mi.

What makes this watershed distinctive

1,472 square miles and 1,659.1 mapped stream miles, with 70 of the 112 named streams designated as trout water over 742 miles. Three carry Blue Ribbon designations: Bear Creek, the Fox River and its East Branch. The Fox and East Branch Fox run 36.5 and 35.1 miles respectively, both typed cold with Type 3 water on them. The Manistique River itself, 78.9 miles and the longest here, types warm. Across the 552.5 miles MDNR has classified — 33% of the network, a good sample — cool water dominates at 345, with 90.1 cold, 63.4 cold-transitional and 54 warm, and the gradient is unusually flat: 267.5 miles low and 181.3 very low against 15.3 high. Public land is 447,218 acres, 47.5% of the basin, held in only 68 units — 375,182 acres of state land and 45,823 under the US Fish and Wildlife Service. No gauge here carries a July record.

Every named stream in the basin

All 112 of them, longest first. 26 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
Manistique River 78.9 Warm — Type 1, Type 2, Type 4
Indian River 59.9 Cold-transitional — Type 2
West Branch Manistique River 41.9 Cool — Type 2
Driggs River 36.8 Cool — Type 2
Fox River Blue Ribbon 36.5 Cold — Type 2, Type 3
East Branch Fox River Blue Ribbon 35.1 Cold — Type 2, Type 3
Stutts Creek 33.5 Cool — Type 2
Marsh Creek 32.8 Cool — —
Hickey Creek 29.6 Cool — Type 2
North Branch Stutts Creek 26.4 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Bear Creek Blue Ribbon 26.2 Cold — Type 2
Creighton River 22.8 Cool — Type 2
Duck Creek 20.6 Cool — —
Mead Creek 17.9 Cool — —
Smith Creek 15.8 Cool — —
Pine Creek 15.6 Cool — Type 2
Star Creek 14.7 Cool — Type 2
Little Indian River 13.2 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Hay Meadow Creek 12.1 Cool — —
Little Fox River 11.2 Cold — Type 2, Type 3
South Branch Stutts Creek 10.8 untyped — Type 2
Prairie Creek 10.3 Cool — Type 2
Stoner Creek 10.2 untyped — Type 2
Little Duck Creek 10.2 Cool — —
Walsh Creek 10.1 Cool — Type 2
West Branch Fox River 10.1 Cold — Type 2
Stony Creek 8.2 untyped — Type 2
Delias Run 7.9 Cool — Type 2
Deer Creek 7.5 Cold — Type 2
Middle Branch Stutts Creek 7.3 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Clarks Ditch 7.3 Cool — —
Mezik Creek 7.0 Cool — Type 2
Beaver Creek 7.0 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Sturgeon Hole Creek 6.9 Cool — Type 2
Big Murphy Creek 6.6 Cold — Type 2
Iron Creek 6.6 Cool — Type 2
West Branch Hickey Creek 6.4 Cool — Type 2
Section Nineteen Creek 6.3 Cool — —
Black Creek 6.2 Cool — Type 2
Dufour Creek 6.1 Cool — Type 2
Ross Creek 6.0 Cold — Type 2
Commencement Creek 6.0 untyped — —
Kilpecker Creek 5.8 untyped — Type 2
Grays Creek 5.8 Cool — —
Cold Creek 5.7 Cold — Type 2, Type 3
Carr Creek 5.5 Cold — Type 2
Portage Creek 5.3 Warm — —
Shotgun Creek 5.2 Cool — Type 2
Silver Creek 5.0 untyped — Type 2
Taylor Creek 5.0 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Dead Creek 4.9 Cool — Type 2
Upper Black Creek 4.7 Cold — Type 2
Brace Creek 4.7 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Holland Ditch 4.7 Cool — —
Bear Slough 4.7 Cool — —
Twomile Ditch 4.3 Cool — Type 2, Type 3
Spring Creek 4.2 untyped — Type 2
Delta Creek 4.1 Cool — —
Holland Creek 4.0 Cool — —
Sand Creek 3.8 Cool — —
Norton Creek 3.7 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Little Murphy Creek 3.7 Cold — Type 2
Clear Creek 3.6 Cold — Type 2
Shoepac River 3.6 Cool — —
Mahoney Creek 3.4 Cold — Type 2
Strom Creek 3.4 Cold-transitional — —
Little Bear Creek 3.3 untyped — Type 2
Grass Creek 3.3 untyped — Type 2
Bev Creek 3.2 Cold — Type 2
Haymeadow Creek 3.2 untyped — Type 2
Locke Creek 3.1 Cold-transitional — Type 2
East West Ditch 3.1 Cool — —
Unit Number One Diversion Ditch 3.1 Cool — —
Fenton Creek 3.0 untyped — Type 2
Helmer Creek 3.0 Warm — Type 2
Casey Creek 3.0 Cold — Type 2
East Branch Bear Creek 3.0 untyped — Type 2
Walsh Ditch 3.0 untyped — —
Metser Creek 2.9 untyped — Type 2
Dougal Creek 2.9 Cool — —
Camp Seven Creek 2.8 Cold — Type 2
Hiawatha Creek 2.8 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Ducey Creek 2.8 Cool — —
Toms Creek 2.8 Cool — —
Gray Duck Creek 2.7 Cool — —
Merwin Creek 2.4 untyped — —
Clemons Creek 2.4 Cool — —
Tad Creek 2.3 Cool — —
Boucher Creek 2.2 Cool — —
Gronden Creek 2.0 untyped — Type 2, Type 3
Sweeney Ditch 2.0 Cool — —
Wolf Creek 1.9 Cool — —
Unit Number Two Diversion Ditch 1.8 Cool — —
Grindstone Creek 1.8 untyped — —
Pelican Creek 1.7 Cold — Type 2
Fork Creek 1.7 Cold-transitional — —
Snyder Creek 1.6 untyped — Type 2
Grassy Creek 1.6 untyped — —
North Mino-kwe Creek 1.5 untyped — Type 2
Negro Creek 1.4 Cold-transitional — Type 2
Goulds Slough 1.4 Cold — —
Hudson Creek 1.3 Cold — Type 2, Type 3
Loon Creek 1.3 Cold — Type 2
Southside Creek 1.3 Cold-transitional — —
Spur Ditch 1.1 Cool — —
Pelky Creek 1.1 untyped — —
Little Star Creek 1.0 untyped — Type 2
Otter Creek 0.9 untyped — Type 2
Leg Creek 0.8 untyped — —
Cub Bear Creek 0.7 untyped — Type 2
Sturgeon Hole Slough 0.7 untyped — —
Camp Eightthree Creek 0.6 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

447,219 acres in 68 units, which is 47.5% of the 942,021 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 375,182 84% 28
US Fish & Wildlife Service 45,823 10% 2
Owner not recorded 15,076 3% 3
US Forest Service 5,615 1% 3
Designation overlay 2,871 1% 2
National Park Service 2,187 0% 3
The Nature Conservancy 121 0% 2
Local Government land 118 0% 14

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.