BirdTrout

Owego-Wappasening Watershed, New York

1,628 miles of mapped stream across 1,045 square miles of drainage in Tioga, Broome, Tompkins, Chemung, Schuyler, Cortland counties, in 70 named streams. New York designates 129 of those miles as trout water, on 24 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 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 02050103 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,628 mi
of mapped stream
4,516 NHD reaches
1,045 sq mi
drainage area
668,617 acres
40,908 ac
public land
6.1% 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 11% of this basin's stream miles (184.1 of 1,628); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

184.1 of the 184.1 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 11% of it.

Every named stream in the basin

All 70 of them, longest first. 4 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
Susquehanna River 33.3 untyped — —
East Branch Owego Creek 30.4 Cold — Class C — fishing
Cayuta Creek 27.3 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation
Nanticoke Creek 25.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
West Branch Owego Creek 25.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
Catatonk Creek 24.5 untyped — —
Pipe Creek 15.7 untyped — —
South Branch Catatonk Creek 12.8 untyped — —
Willseyville Creek 11.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Doolittle Creek 10.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Little Choconut Creek 10.4 untyped — —
Wilson Creek 10.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
East Branch Nanticoke Creek 10.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Crocker Creek 9.9 untyped — —
Little Nanticoke Creek 9.8 untyped — —
Choconut Creek 9.7 untyped — —
Ellis Creek 9.6 untyped — —
Michigan Creek 9.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
Ketchumville Branch 9.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Danby Creek 7.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Pumpelly Creek 7.9 untyped — —
Bradley Creek 7.4 untyped — —
Miller Creek 7.4 Cold — Class C — fishing
Sulphur Springs Creek 7.0 untyped — —
Owego Creek 7.0 Cold — Class C — fishing
Pony Hollow Creek 6.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Patterson Creek 6.8 untyped — —
Dean Creek 6.7 untyped — —
Tracy Creek 6.5 untyped — —
Hunts Creek 6.3 untyped — —
Dry Brook 6.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
McDuffy Creek 6.1 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation
Cayuta Inlet 6.0 untyped — —
Evelin Hill Creek 5.8 untyped — —
Langford Creek 5.7 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation
Boyer Creek 5.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
Jackson Creek 5.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
McCorn Creek 5.4 Cold — Class C — fishing
Smith Creek 5.3 untyped — —
Hubby Creek 5.2 untyped — —
Chambers Creek 5.2 untyped — —
Hoyt Creek 5.0 untyped — —
Chaffee Creek 4.6 untyped — —
Barnes Creek 4.5 untyped — —
Seelytown Creek 4.1 untyped — —
Carter Creek 4.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Brixius Creek 4.0 untyped — —
Sugar Creek 3.8 untyped — —
Hooker Creek 3.7 untyped — —
Miami Creek 3.6 untyped — —
Fuller Hollow Creek 3.4 untyped — —
Bliven Creek 3.4 untyped — —
Cole Brook 3.4 untyped — —
Willow Creek 3.4 untyped — —
Baker Creek 3.3 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation
Bunn Hill Creek 3.1 untyped — —
Willow Run 2.9 untyped — —
Reed Brook 2.9 untyped — —
Owl Creek 2.7 untyped — —
Dead Creek 2.6 untyped — —
Banfield Creek 2.6 untyped — —
Huntington Creek 2.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
Johnson Creek 2.5 untyped — —
Burheight Creek 2.4 untyped — —
Hubbard Hill Brook 2.4 untyped — —
Reniff Run 2.4 untyped — —
Flag Marsh Run 2.3 untyped — —
Darling Creek 2.1 Cold — Class B — swimming and contact recreation
Chenango River 1.8 untyped — —
Apalachin Creek 0.8 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

40,908 acres in 17 units, which is 6.1% of the 668,617 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 37,751 92% 12
Another state agency 2,075 5% 1
County land 1,017 2% 2
State park agency 65 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.