BirdTrout

Ausable River Watershed, New York

910 miles of mapped stream across 515 square miles of drainage in Essex, Clinton counties, in 98 named streams. New York designates 426 of those miles as trout water, on 90 streams. The 1 mainstem gauge with a July record read 58.2°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 NYSDEC's own classification of the stream, not a measurement, except at the gauge dots, which read live. Grey is water NYSDEC has not typed.

The watershed in numbers

HUC8 04300104 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

910 mi
of mapped stream
1,945 NHD reaches
515 sq mi
drainage area
329,526 acres
58.2°F
July water temperature at the gauges
1 mainstem gauge, mean 58.2°F
154,703 ac
public land
46.9% of the basin · 17 units

Cold, cool and warm water

NYSDEC classifies every surface water in New York under 6 NYCRR Parts 800-941, and the class is a best usage — what the water is protected for — rather than a temperature. The temperature statement is the (T) or (TS) suffix beside it: the water DEC designates for trout, or for trout spawning, which 6 NYCRR 704.2(b) protects with a 70 °F ceiling on any discharge. That suffix is what this page counts and what the map paints by; the class letter is printed beside it and is not a thermal grade. It covers 77% of this basin's stream miles (704.5 of 910); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

704.5 of the 704.5 typed miles in this basin — 100% — are cold or cold-transitional water. Every typed reach carries the same class, which is as likely to be the coverage as the water: NYSDEC has typed 77% of it.

Every named stream in the basin

All 98 of them, longest first. 9 have a page of their own and are linked; the rest are in the app. The class column is NYSDEC's designation of that stream. "Now" is the live USGS reading where a gauge stands in that stream.

Stream Miles Class Now Designation
West Branch Ausable River 40.7 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
East Branch Ausable River 37.1 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
Ausable River 21.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
Chubb River 17.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
Black Brook 15.1 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Marcy Brook 12.1 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Indian Pass Brook 9.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
Blake Brook 9.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Beaver Brook 8.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
Johns Brook 8.7 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Taylor Pond Outlet 8.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
Cascade Brook 8.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Palmer Brook 8.0 Cold — Class A — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Dry Mill Brook 8.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Mud Brook 8.0 untyped — —
Styles Brook 7.8 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Rocky Branch 7.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Phelps Brook 7.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Little Black Brook 7.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
South Meadow Brook 6.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Nichols Brook 6.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
North Meadow Brook 6.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
Otis Brook 6.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
Middle Kilns Brook 6.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
Outlet Brook 6.2 Cold — Class AA-S — drinking water source, special, Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
Pettigrew Brook 5.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Gay Brook 5.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Beede Brook 5.0 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Big Brown Brook 5.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Roaring Brook 4.9 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Lewis Brook 4.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
Spruce Hill Brook 4.7 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Gulf Brook 4.6 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Dart Brook 4.6 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Pete Lagus Brook 4.4 Cold — Class C — fishing
Crystal Brook 4.3 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Green Street Brook 4.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Slide Brook 3.9 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Gill Brook 3.8 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Klondike Brook 3.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
Walton Brook 3.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Clifford Brook 3.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Stephenson Brook 3.5 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
Jackson Brook 3.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
Jones Brook 3.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Southwick Brook 3.4 Cold — Class C — fishing
Shanty Brook 3.3 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Stillwater Inlet 3.2 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Porter Brook 3.2 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Putnam Brook 3.1 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Carney Brook 3.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Bear Brook 3.0 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Whiteface Brook 2.9 Cold — Class AA-S — drinking water source, special
Deer Brook 2.8 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Madden Brook 2.7 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
MacIntyre Brook 2.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
White Brook 2.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
Demar Brook 2.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
McGuire Brook 2.6 untyped — —
Ore Bed Brook 2.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Two Brooks 2.5 Cold — Class AA-S — drinking water source, special
Alder Brook 2.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
Sand Brook 2.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Hull Basin Brook 2.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Number Five Brook 2.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Casey Brook 2.3 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Red Brook 2.3 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
New Bridge Brook 2.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Haystack Brook 2.1 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Mossy Cascade Brook 2.1 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Liscomb Brook 2.1 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Flume Brook 2.0 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Norton Brook 1.9 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
McNalley Brook 1.9 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Falls Brook 1.9 Cold — Class AA-S — drinking water source, special
Pelkey Brook 1.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
Curren Brook 1.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
Rooster Comb Brook 1.5 untyped — —
Wolfjaw Brook 1.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Hopkins Brook 1.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Minnow Brook 1.5 Cold — Class AA-S — drinking water source, special
Pyramid Brook 1.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Kiln Brook 1.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Allegany Brook 1.4 Cold — Class C — fishing
Icy Brook 1.3 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Slide Mountain Brook 1.3 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Cassidy Brook 1.3 untyped — —
Rock Cut Brook 1.2 untyped — —
Bennies Brook 1.1 untyped — —
Chicken Coop Brook 1.1 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Wedge Brook 1.0 untyped — —
Dickey Brook 1.0 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
O'Connell Brook 1.0 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Hogback Brook 0.9 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Cedar Brook 0.8 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Basin Brook 0.7 untyped — —
Dry Brook 0.6 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Teakettle Brook 0.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source

Public land in the watershed

154,703 acres in 17 units, which is 46.9% of the 329,526 acres the basin covers. Private inholdings carried in the same source file are excluded, here and on the map.

Managing agency Acres Share Units
State conservation department 153,435 99% 14
County land 811 1% 1
Another state agency 457 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.

Neighbouring watersheds

The subbasins that share a boundary with this one and carry coldwater streams.