BirdTrout

Shiawassee Watershed, Michigan

2,361 miles of mapped stream across 1,266 square miles of drainage in Genesee, Saginaw, Shiawassee counties, in 127 named streams. Michigan designates 121 of those miles as trout water, on 1 stream.

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 04080203 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

2,361 mi
of mapped stream
3,443 NHD reaches
1,266 sq mi
drainage area
810,046 acres
45,758 ac
public land
5.6% of the basin · 228 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 (757.8 of 2,361); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

0.0 of the 757.8 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 459.4 mi, medium 188.5 mi, very low 94.3 mi, high 15.7 mi.

What makes this watershed distinctive

One stream in this basin is designated trout water: the Shiawassee River itself, 120.6 miles of it, carrying a Type 1 designation and typed warm by MDNR. Bear Creek holds a Blue Ribbon designation. Beyond that the basin is warm and thoroughly documented as such — of 757.8 typed miles, 747.2 are warm and 10.6 cool, with no cold or cold-transitional water at all, over a sample covering 32% of the 2,361.4 mapped stream miles. The Bad River, Beaver Creek, the South Branch Shiawassee and North Ore Creek all type warm. The gradient is low: 459.4 of the typed miles low and 94.3 very low. Public ground is 45,757 acres, 5.6% of the basin, in 228 units, and includes 8,758 acres held by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Lake sturgeon, northern pike and walleye have been stocked, and MDNR's one survey station here recorded smallmouth bass.

Every named stream in the basin

All 127 of them, longest first. 1 has a page of its own and is 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
Shiawassee River 120.6 Warm — Type 1
Bad River 43.1 Warm — —
Beaver Creek 33.1 Warm — —
South Branch Shiawassee River 30.6 Warm — —
North Ore Creek 25.0 Warm — —
South Fork Bad River 24.4 Warm — —
Potato Creek 18.9 Warm — —
Fairchild Creek 17.7 Warm — —
Birch Run 16.7 untyped — —
Bogue Creek 15.5 Warm — —
Lamb Creek 14.5 untyped — —
Swan Creek 14.1 Warm — —
Pickerel Creek 13.9 Warm — —
Bear Creek Blue Ribbon 12.6 Warm — —
Wolf Creek 12.2 Warm — —
Carson Drain 11.8 Warm — —
McClellan Run 11.8 Warm — —
Fleming Drain 11.5 Warm — —
Deer Creek 11.2 Warm — —
Cranberry Creek 10.9 Warm — —
Griffus Creek 10.9 Warm — —
Jones Creek 10.4 untyped — —
Webb Creek 9.7 Warm — —
Jo Drain 9.4 Warm — —
Shad Creek 9.1 Warm — —
Little Potato Creek 8.8 Warm — —
Handy Creek 8.4 untyped — —
Eagle Creek 8.4 Warm — —
Franklin Drain 8.1 untyped — —
Limbocker Creek 8.0 Warm — —
Brady Creek 7.5 Warm — —
Marion and Genoa Drain 7.1 untyped — —
Sixmile Creek 7.1 Warm — —
Threemile Creek 6.8 Warm — —
Runyan Creek 6.8 untyped — —
Sprague Creek 6.6 Warm — —
Blackmer Drain 6.6 Warm — —
Porter Drain 6.5 untyped — —
Moon Drain 6.5 untyped — —
Beaver Drain 6.3 untyped — —
Atherton Drain 6.2 untyped — —
Buckhorn Creek 6.0 untyped — —
Horton Graham Drain 5.9 Warm — —
West Branch Sawyer Drain 5.8 Warm — —
Whitmore Drain 5.4 untyped — —
Conway Cohoctah Union Drain 5.3 untyped — —
Lindsey Drain 5.3 untyped — —
Huckleberry Drain 5.3 Warm — —
Morgan Creek 4.9 Warm — —
Mount Haley Drain 4.8 untyped — —
Hovey Drain 4.7 Warm — —
Denton Creek 4.6 untyped — —
Albert Drain 4.6 Warm — —
Little Eagle Creek 4.6 Warm — —
Limbocker Drain 4.4 untyped — —
Cole Drain 4.4 untyped — —
Corbat Drain 4.4 untyped — —
Marsh Creek 4.3 Warm — —
Short Ditch 4.3 Warm — —
Price Drain 4.3 untyped — —
Holly Drain 4.2 Warm — —
Edgar Drain 4.2 untyped — —
Ferguson Bayou 4.1 untyped — —
Corrigall Drain 4.1 untyped — —
Soap Run 4.1 Warm — —
Dygert Drain 4.0 untyped — —
Eaton Drain 3.9 untyped — —
Nelson Run 3.8 untyped — —
Kanause Lake Drain 3.7 Warm — —
Gallagher Drain 3.7 Warm — —
Kennedy Drain 3.7 untyped — —
Yellow River Drain 3.6 untyped — —
Bear Swamp Drain 3.6 Warm — —
Hatch Run 3.6 Warm — —
Bebee Drain 3.6 Warm — —
Mikan Drain 3.5 Warm — —
Wright Drain 3.5 Warm — —
Mickles Creek 3.5 Warm — —
Webb Drain 3.4 Warm — —
Bearwallow Creek 3.4 untyped — —
Chalker Drain 3.4 untyped — —
Caledonia Drain 3.3 untyped — —
David Drain 3.3 untyped — —
North State Drain 3.2 Warm — —
Terry Drain 3.2 untyped — —
Burns and Vernon Drain 3.2 Warm — —
Greens Drain 3.1 Warm — —
Badger Drain 3.0 Warm — —
Wickham Drain 3.0 Warm — —
Olney Drain 3.0 Warm — —
Cohoctah and Barnum Drain 2.9 Warm — —
Brown Fickies Drain 2.8 Warm — —
Davison Drain 2.6 untyped — —
Livingston Shiawassee Drain 2.4 Warm — —
Sanford Neal Drain 2.4 untyped — —
Williams Creek 2.2 Warm — —
Kanause Drain 2.2 untyped — —
Hubbell Drain 2.2 Warm — —
Hook Drain 2.2 Warm — —
Salesbury Drain 2.1 Warm — —
Keller Drain 2.0 Warm — —
Richter Drain 2.0 untyped — —
Greison Drain 2.0 untyped — —
Dice Drain 1.9 Warm — —
Gifford Drain 1.8 Warm — —
Cron Drain 1.8 untyped — —
Weeks Drain 1.8 untyped — —
Egyptian Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Patterson Holly Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Drake Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Emory Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Hadstadt Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Boots Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Coon Drain 1.7 untyped — —
Guest Drain 1.6 untyped — —
Kelley Drain 1.6 untyped — —
Abbey Drain 1.5 Warm — —
Thurlow Tile Drain 1.5 untyped — —
Sickles Drain 1.4 Warm — —
Bennett Drain 1.4 untyped — —
Bullhead Creek 1.2 untyped — —
Maple Swamp Drain 1.2 Warm — —
Coal Mine Drain 1.1 untyped — —
Barrett Drain 1.1 untyped — —
Bills Drain 0.9 Warm — —
Francis Drain 0.8 untyped — —
Osburn Drain 0.1 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

45,758 acres in 228 units, which is 5.6% of the 810,046 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 24,866 54% 18
US Fish & Wildlife Service 8,758 19% 1
Local Government land 6,329 14% 83
City and township land 1,568 3% 43
Springfield Township 577 1% 1
County land 550 1% 4
Other State Land 495 1% 2
Local government land 470 1% 3

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
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
Lake sturgeon — — 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.