BirdTrout

Cattaraugus River Watershed, New York

1,483 miles of mapped stream across 560 square miles of drainage in Cattaraugus, Erie, Wyoming, Chautauqua, Allegany counties, in 36 named streams. New York designates 244 of those miles as trout water, on 27 streams. The 1 mainstem gauge with a July record read 75.1°F in July.

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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 04120102 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,483 mi
of mapped stream
3,783 NHD reaches
560 sq mi
drainage area
358,145 acres
75.1°F
July water temperature at the gauges
1 mainstem gauge, mean 75.1°F
10,430 ac
public land
2.9% of the basin · 11 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 25% of this basin's stream miles (363.7 of 1,483); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

363.7 of the 363.7 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 25% of it.

Every named stream in the basin

All 36 of them, longest first. 6 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
Cattaraugus Creek 78.5 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
Clear Creek 38.6 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
South Branch Cattaraugus Creek 24.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Elton Creek 22.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
North Branch Clear Creek 15.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Spring Brook 14.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
Mansfield Creek 12.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
Connoisarauley Creek 11.6 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
Buttermilk Creek 11.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Utley Brook 7.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Spooner Creek 7.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Big Indian Creek 7.2 untyped — —
Stony Creek 6.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
Lime Lake Outlet 6.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
East Otto Creek 6.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Waterman Brook 6.3 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
Thatcher Brook 6.2 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation, Class C — fishing
Coon Brook 6.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Dresser Creek 5.6 untyped — —
McKinstry Creek 5.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Little Indian Creek 5.2 untyped — —
Gooseneck Creek 5.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Hosmer Brook 5.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Monkey Run 4.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Derby Brook 4.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Hyler Creek 4.4 untyped — —
Nigh Creek 4.3 untyped — —
Indian Creek 4.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Point Peter Brook 4.1 Cold — Class A — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Grannis Creek 3.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
King Brook 3.5 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation
Otis Creek 3.5 untyped — —
Dry Creek 3.4 untyped — —
Goodell Creek 2.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Stony Brook 2.6 untyped — —
Franks Creek 2.1 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

10,430 acres in 11 units, which is 2.9% of the 358,145 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 7,265 70% 8
Another state agency 1,675 16% 1
County land 1,490 14% 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.