BirdTrout

Castle Rock River Watershed, Wisconsin

2,112 miles of mapped stream across 3,249 square miles of drainage in Juneau, Wood, Adams, Portage, Monroe, Marathon, Waushara, Sauk counties, in 95 named streams. Wisconsin designates 431 of those miles as trout water, on 64 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 Wisconsin DNR's own classification of the stream, not a measurement, except at the gauge dots, which read live. Grey is water Wisconsin DNR has not typed.

The watershed in numbers

HUC8 07070003 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

2,112 mi
of mapped stream
4,578 NHD reaches
3,249 sq mi
drainage area
2,079,622 acres
98,198 ac
public land
4.7% of the basin · 35 units

Cold, cool and warm water

WDNR's trout stream classification, which types the stream by the trout population it supports rather than by measuring the water — every reach it calls Class I, II or III carries WDNR's own cold designation. It covers 20% of this basin's stream miles (420.9 of 2,112); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

420.9 of the 420.9 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: Wisconsin DNR has typed 20% of it.

What makes this watershed distinctive

Castle Rock is the largest basin by area on this state's list — 3,249 square miles of Juneau, Wood, Adams and Portage counties — and its trout water is the sand-country spring creeks rather than the river: the Wisconsin's own 73.4 miles are undesignated, while the Plover River runs 66.1 miles carrying all three classes, Big Roche a Cri Creek 35.5 miles at Class I and II, Carter Creek 26.6 and the Little Lemonweir 26.3 both across all three classes, and Little Roche a Cri 20.4 miles at Class I and II. WDNR designates 431 of the basin's 855 mapped miles on 64 of its 95 named streams and classifies 578 miles cold. Public ground is 98,467 acres, county forest first — Wood at 25,630 acres, Juneau at 17,102, Jackson at 12,124.

Every named stream in the basin

All 95 of them, longest first. 49 have a page of their own and are linked; the rest are in the app. The class column is Wisconsin DNR's designation of that stream. "Now" is the live USGS reading where a gauge stands in that stream.

Stream Miles Class Now Designation
Wisconsin River 73.4 untyped — —
Plover River 66.1 Cold — Class I, Class II, Class III
Big Roche a Cri Creek 35.5 Cold — Class I, Class II
Carter Creek 26.6 Cold — Class I, Class II, Class III
Little Lemonweir River 26.3 Cold — Class I, Class II, Class III
Little Roche a Cri Creek 20.4 Cold — Class I, Class II
Moccasin Creek 19.5 Cold — Class II
East Fork Lemonweir River 19.1 untyped — —
Dell Creek 18.5 Cold — Class II
Onemile Creek 18.2 Cold — Class I, Class II, Class III
Rocky Creek 18.0 Cold — Class I
Ditch Number Three 16.2 Cold — Class I, Class II
Tenmile Creek 15.1 Cold — Class II, Class III
Ditch Number Five 14.7 Cold — Class I, Class II
Lemonweir River 13.9 untyped — —
Dry Creek 12.9 Cold — Class II
Sevenmile Creek 12.6 Cold — Class I
South Fork Lemonweir River 12.2 untyped — —
Mill Creek 12.1 Cold — Class I, Class II
Buena Vista Creek 11.6 Cold — Class II
Twomile Creek 11.1 untyped — —
Mud Creek 10.9 Cold — Class I
Council Creek 9.9 untyped — Class III
Fivemile Creek 9.6 Cold — Class II, Class III
Lyndon Creek 9.5 untyped — Class III
Webster Creek 9.3 Cold — Class II, Class III
Jay Creek 9.2 untyped — Class III
Ditch Number Eight 9.0 Cold — Class I
White Creek 8.5 Cold — Class II
Lost Creek 8.4 Cold — Class I
Dead Creek 8.2 untyped — —
Brewer Creek 8.0 Cold — Class I
Campbell Creek 7.8 Cold — Class I, Class II
Duck Creek 7.6 Cold — Class I
Bloody Run 7.6 Cold — Class I
Hulburt Creek 7.6 Cold — Class I, Class II
Brandy Creek 7.5 Cold — Class II
Plainville Creek 7.2 Cold — Class I
Lynn Creek 7.1 Cold — Class I
Little Onemile Creek 7.1 untyped — Class III
Ditch Number Six 7.0 Cold — Class I, Class II
Kreyer Creek 6.6 untyped — —
Fordham Creek 6.5 Cold — Class I
Sand Creek 6.5 untyped — —
Ditch Number Four 6.4 Cold — Class I
Ditch Number Ten 6.1 untyped — —
Cattail Valley Creek 6.1 untyped — —
Fourmile Creek 6.0 Cold — Class I
Fountain Creek 5.9 Cold — Class II
Corning Creek 5.8 Cold — Class I
Little Plover River 5.7 Cold — Class I
Ditch Number One 5.7 Cold — Class I
Indian Creek 5.5 untyped — Class III
Fairbanks Creek 5.5 Cold — Class I
Gulch Creek 5.5 Cold — Class I
Risk Creek 5.4 Cold — Class II
Holtzlander Creek 5.4 untyped — Class III
Ditch Number Nine 5.3 untyped — —
Whisky Creek 5.3 Cold — Class I
Shadduck Creek 5.3 untyped — —
West Petenwell Ditch 5.1 Cold — Class II
Tracy Creek 5.1 untyped — Class III
Spring Brook 5.0 untyped — —
Ripple Creek 4.8 untyped — —
Stewart Creek 4.5 untyped — —
Little Yellow River 4.5 untyped — —
Harrison Creek 4.5 Cold — Class II
Gilmore Creek 4.3 Cold — Class I, Class II
South Branch Tenmile Creek 4.2 Cold — Class I
North Creek 4.0 untyped — —
Hoton Creek 3.9 Cold — Class I
Camels Creek 3.8 Cold — Class I
Trout Creek 3.7 untyped — —
Rocky Run 3.6 Cold — Class II
Lowry Creek 3.5 untyped — —
Spring Creek 3.3 untyped — —
Lateral Number Two 2.9 untyped — —
North Branch Tenmile Creek 2.8 Cold — Class I
Castle Rock Ditch 2.6 untyped — —
Pike Lake Creek 2.5 Cold — Class II
Deer Creek 2.4 Cold — Class I
Beaver Creek 2.4 Cold — Class II
Chester Creek 2.3 Cold — Class I
Harvey Creek 2.1 untyped — —
Beltz Creek 2.1 untyped — —
Leola Ditch 2.0 Cold — Class II
Isherwood Lateral 1.7 Cold — Class I
Cranberry Creek 1.6 untyped — —
Fourteenmile Creek 1.6 untyped — —
Bingham Creek 1.3 untyped — —
Apple Creek 1.2 untyped — —
Rice Lake Creek 1.1 untyped — —
Dandy Creek 1.1 untyped — —
Ditch Number Two 0.9 Cold — Class I
Dead Horse Creek 0.9 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

98,198 acres in 35 units, which is 4.7% of the 2,079,622 acres the basin covers. Private inholdings carried in the same source file are excluded, here and on the map.

Managing agency Acres Share Units
County forest 58,915 60% 5
Wisconsin DNR 39,283 40% 29
US Fish and Wildlife Service 0 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.

Best time to fish

The hatch calendar for the Wisconsin driftless, 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

51 insects are recorded from the Wisconsin driftless. 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.