BirdTrout

Saranac River Watershed, New York

934 miles of mapped stream across 613 square miles of drainage in Franklin, Clinton, Essex counties, in 55 named streams. New York designates 300 of those miles as trout water, on 46 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 04300106 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

934 mi
of mapped stream
2,095 NHD reaches
613 sq mi
drainage area
392,466 acres
194,026 ac
public land
49.4% of the basin · 13 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 60% of this basin's stream miles (561.5 of 934); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

561.5 of the 561.5 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 60% of it.

Every named stream in the basin

All 55 of them, longest first. 5 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
Saranac River 82.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
North Branch Saranac River 30.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Cold Brook 29.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Alder Brook 16.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Negro Brook 15.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
Twobridge Brook 15.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Ray Brook 10.4 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
West Brook 9.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
True Brook 8.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Frenchs Brook 8.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
East Branch Cold Brook 8.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Mud Pond Brook 8.6 Cold — Class A — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Lyon Brook 7.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
Lincoln Brook 7.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
Rickerson Brook 6.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
East Brook 6.4 Cold — Class C — fishing
Kelly Brook 6.1 untyped — —
Canfield Brook 5.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Fish Creek 5.8 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Corners Brook 5.8 Cold — Class C — fishing
Sandburn Brook 5.8 untyped — —
Brandy Brook 5.7 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Lake Clear Outlet 5.5 Cold — Class AA — drinking water source
Halfway Brook 5.4 untyped — —
Silver Lake Brook 5.4 Cold — Class A — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Behan Brook 5.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Roger Brook 4.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Beartown Brook 4.7 untyped — —
Fay Brook 4.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
Fall Brook 4.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
Sumner Brook 4.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Smithkill Brook 4.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Bailey Brook 3.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Flag Brook 3.8 untyped — —
McKenzie Brook 3.8 Cold — Class A — drinking water source
Still Brook 3.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Mead Brook 3.5 Cold — Class C — fishing
Grass Pond Outlet 3.4 Cold — Class A — drinking water source
Ryans Brook 3.3 Cold — Class C — fishing
McKenna Brook 3.1 untyped — —
Little Ray Brook 2.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Beaver Meadow Brook 2.9 Cold — Class C — fishing
Moose Creek 2.7 Cold — Class A — drinking water source, Class C — fishing
Wemette Brook 2.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Oregon Brook 2.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Bernau Brook 2.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Stord Brook 2.6 Cold — Class C — fishing
Casey Brook 2.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Dutton Brook 2.1 untyped — —
Patterson Brook 1.9 untyped — —
Washbourn Brook 1.7 Cold — Class C — fishing
Lost Channel 1.2 Cold — Class C — fishing
Uncle Toms Brook 1.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Hough Brook 1.1 Cold — Class C — fishing
Kelly Slough 0.4 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

194,026 acres in 13 units, which is 49.4% of the 392,466 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 191,796 99% 11
City and township land 1,455 1% 1
Another state agency 775 0% 1

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.