BirdTrout

Pigeon-Wiscoggin Watershed, Michigan

2,458 miles of mapped stream across 892 square miles of drainage in Huron, Tuscola counties, in 92 named streams. Michigan designates 205 of those miles as trout water, on 25 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 04080103 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

2,458 mi
of mapped stream
3,036 NHD reaches
892 sq mi
drainage area
570,954 acres
14,694 ac
public land
2.6% of the basin · 102 units

Cold, cool and warm water

MDNR's Valley Segment Ecological Classification, which types the valley segment rather than measuring the water. It covers 32% of this basin's stream miles (796.6 of 2,458); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

0.0 of the 796.6 typed miles in this basin — 0% — are cold or cold-transitional water. Every typed reach carries the same class, which is as likely to be the coverage as the water: MDNR has typed 32% of it.

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 501.5 mi, low 152.6 mi, very low 142.5 mi.

What makes this watershed distinctive

Every one of the 796.6 miles MDNR has typed in this basin is warm — the only watershed on this map with a single-class profile and no exceptions in it. That covers 32% of 2,458.1 mapped stream miles, which is a thorough sample, so this is a description of the basin rather than of a corner of it. The Pigeon River runs 39.6 miles and the Pinnebog 39.4, both warm; the Wiscoggin Drain and the State Drain are named as drains and are typed the same way. 25 of the 92 named streams are designated trout water over 205.4 miles, and the Pigeon River holds a Blue Ribbon designation. Public ground is 14,694 acres and 2.6% of the basin, among the least on this map, with 11,318 acres of it state land. Northern pike, rainbow trout and walleye have been stocked; MDNR has no survey station here.

Every named stream in the basin

All 92 of them, longest first. None has a page of its own yet; all of them 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
Pigeon River Blue Ribbon 39.6 Warm — Type 1
Pinnebog River 39.4 Warm — Type 1
New River 21.6 Warm — —
Wiscoggin Drain 21.3 Warm — —
State Drain 15.2 Warm — —
Bad Axe Creek 13.5 Warm — Type 1
Bird Creek 12.9 Warm — Type 1
Sebewaing River 10.6 Warm — —
Shebeon Creek 10.1 Warm — —
Bortman Creek 10.1 Warm — —
Little Pigeon River 9.4 Warm — Type 1
King Drain 9.0 Warm — —
Colona Drain 8.9 Warm — Type 1
Mud Creek 8.8 Warm — —
Baranski Drain 8.3 untyped — —
Shebeon Drain 8.2 Warm — —
Beaubien Drain 8.1 Warm — Type 1
Rush Drain 8.0 Warm — —
Columbian Drain 7.7 Warm — —
Crawford Drain 7.6 Warm — —
Ducolon Drain 7.5 Warm — —
Cramp Drain 7.4 Warm — —
Moore Creek 7.1 Warm — —
Van Drain 6.9 Warm — Type 1
Schram Branch 6.8 Warm — Type 1
Nettle Run 6.7 Warm — Type 1
McMullen Drain 6.3 Warm — Type 1
Southworth Drain 6.2 Warm — Type 1
Filion Drain 5.7 Warm — —
Anti Mason Drain 5.7 Warm — —
Silver Creek 5.2 Warm — —
Shier Drain 5.2 Warm — —
Fisher Drain 5.1 Warm — Type 1
Case Drain 5.0 Warm — —
Thompson Drain 4.7 Warm — —
Fluegge Drain 4.7 Warm — —
Appin Drain 4.6 Warm — Type 1
East Branch Wiscoggin Drain 4.6 untyped — —
Schram Drain 4.5 Warm — —
Colfax Drain 4.4 Warm — Type 1
Huron Drain 4.4 Warm — —
Todd Drain 4.2 Warm — —
Blair Drain 4.1 Warm — Type 1
Brookfield Exit 4.1 Warm — —
Freeman Drain 3.9 Warm — —
Moore Drain 3.9 Warm — —
Hill Drain 3.8 Warm — Type 1
Symons Drain 3.8 Warm — —
Livingston Drain 3.7 Warm — Type 1
Cooley Drain 3.7 Warm — —
Ahearn Drain 3.5 Warm — —
Bearss Drain 3.4 Warm — —
Gilbert Branch 3.4 Warm — —
Harrison Drain 3.4 untyped — —
Weber Drain 3.3 untyped — Type 1
Bechler Drain 3.3 untyped — —
Lockwood Drain 3.3 Warm — —
Conkey Drain 3.2 untyped — —
Richardson Drain 3.2 Warm — —
Markham Drain 3.1 Warm — —
Quanicassee River 3.0 Warm — —
Bope Drain 3.0 Warm — —
Grant Creek 2.9 Warm — —
Swamp Creek 2.8 Warm — —
Wasserman Creek 2.7 untyped — —
Mathews Drain 2.7 Warm — —
Bad Axe Drain 2.6 Warm — —
Marsa Drain 2.6 untyped — —
Pitcher Drain 2.6 Warm — —
East Branch Anti Mason Drain 2.5 Warm — —
McNeil Drain 2.4 untyped — Type 1
Humes Branch 2.4 Warm — —
Elk Drain 2.2 Warm — Type 1
Dwight Drain 2.2 untyped — Type 1
Linton Drain 2.2 Warm — —
Turner Drain 2.1 Warm — —
Knight Drain 2.1 untyped — —
Sandy Drain 2.0 Warm — —
Jameson Drain 2.0 untyped — —
Rush Lake Drain 1.9 untyped — Type 1
Jordan Drain 1.7 Warm — Type 1
Slack Drain 1.7 Warm — —
Ross Branch 1.6 untyped — —
North Branch Shier Drain 1.6 Warm — —
Iseler Drain 1.6 untyped — —
Patterson Drain 1.3 Warm — Type 1
Rawson Drain 1.3 untyped — —
Schant Drain 1.3 Warm — —
McComb Drain 1.2 Warm — —
Clift Drain 1.2 untyped — —
South Branch Rush Drain 1.2 untyped — —
Reid Drain 0.6 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

14,694 acres in 102 units, which is 2.6% of the 570,954 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 11,317 77% 24
Local Government land 2,064 14% 41
City and township land 361 2% 10
County land 259 2% 4
Huron County Nature Center, Inc. 254 2% 1
Michigan Nature Association 102 1% 1
State Dept. of Land 79 1% 1
Hampton Township 42 0% 2

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
Rainbow trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss
 55–64°F 44–70°F stocked
Northern pike
Esox lucius
 60–70°F 40–78°F stocked
Walleye
Sander vitreus
 62–72°F 50–80°F stocked

Best time to fish

The hatch calendar for northern 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

53 insects are recorded from northern 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.