BirdTrout

Lake Dubay Watershed, Wisconsin

2,558 miles of mapped stream across 2,719 square miles of drainage in Marathon, Lincoln, Langlade, Taylor, Wood, Portage, Clark counties, in 98 named streams. Wisconsin designates 622 of those miles as trout water, on 70 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 07070002 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

2,558 mi
of mapped stream
5,788 NHD reaches
2,719 sq mi
drainage area
1,740,422 acres
221,734 ac
public land
12.7% of the basin · 17 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 29% of this basin's stream miles (740.0 of 2,558); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

740.0 of the 740.0 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 29% of it.

What makes this watershed distinctive

Lake Dubay drains 2,719 square miles of Marathon, Lincoln, Langlade and Taylor counties and carries 622 designated miles on 70 of its 98 named streams, with 725 of 992 mapped miles classified cold. The Prairie River runs 54.1 miles at Class I and II, the Big Rib 46.3 carrying all three classes, the East Branch Eau Claire 34.8 at Class I and III, Black Creek 32.6 at Class I and II and Spring Brook 29.5 miles as Class I; the Wisconsin's own 49.6 miles here are undesignated. Public ground is 222,704 acres, led by 87,658 acres of Langlade County Forest, 46,586 of Lincoln County Forest public fishing grounds and the 32,186-acre Mead Wildlife Area. No USGS gauge in the basin holds a July temperature record.

Every named stream in the basin

All 98 of them, longest first. 53 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
Prairie River 54.1 Cold — Class I, Class II
Wisconsin River 49.6 untyped — —
Big Rib River 46.3 Cold — Class I, Class II, Class III
East Branch Eau Claire River 34.8 Cold — Class I, Class III
Black Creek 32.6 Cold — Class I, Class II
Spring Brook 29.5 Cold — Class I
Eau Claire River 28.7 Cold — Class II
West Branch Eau Claire River 28.2 Cold — Class II
Trappe River 26.5 Cold — Class I
Pine River 25.6 Cold — Class II, Class III
Big Hay Meadow Creek 23.9 Cold — Class II
Little Rib River 22.1 untyped — Class II
North Fork Copper River 21.9 Cold — Class II
New Wood River 19.3 Cold — Class I, Class II
North Branch Pine River 17.8 Cold — Class II
Little Pine Creek 15.0 Cold — Class I
McGinnis Creek 14.8 Cold — Class II
Fourmile Creek 14.1 Cold — Class I, Class II
McCloud Creek 13.7 Cold — Class I, Class II
Devil Creek 12.5 untyped — Class III
Copper River 12.2 untyped — —
Freeman Creek 12.2 Cold — Class II, Class III
North Branch Prairie River 12.0 Cold — Class II
Middle Fork Copper River 11.3 Cold — Class II
Little Hay Meadow Creek 10.7 Cold — Class II
Black Brook 10.6 untyped — —
Wood Creek 10.4 Cold — Class II
East Lemke Creek 9.4 untyped — —
Silvernagel Creek 9.2 untyped — —
County Line Creek 9.2 untyped — Class I
West Fork Little Rib River 9.0 untyped — Class I
Averill Creek 8.7 Cold — Class II
Mink Creek 8.6 untyped — Class III
Little Trappe River 8.5 Cold — Class I
Barnes Creek 8.3 Cold — Class II
Baldwin Creek 8.1 untyped — Class I
New Wood Creek 7.7 untyped — —
Center Fork New Wood River 7.6 Cold — Class I
Oldens Creek 7.6 Cold — Class I, Class II
South Fork Copper River 7.5 Cold — Class II
Pratt Creek 7.5 Cold — Class II
East Fork New Wood River 7.3 Cold — Class I
Spring Creek 7.2 Cold — Class I, Class II
Joe Snow Creek 7.2 Cold — Class I
Skanawan Creek 6.8 untyped — —
Layman Creek 6.7 untyped — —
Big Cain Creek 6.5 Cold — Class I
Mole Brook 6.5 Cold — Class I
Grass Creek 6.4 Cold — Class I
Burns Creek 6.4 untyped — —
Kelly Creek 6.2 untyped — —
Sheep Ranch Creek 6.0 Cold — Class II
Skulen Creek 6.0 Cold — Class II
Cedar Creek 6.0 untyped — —
Shea Creek 5.9 Cold — Class I
Lloyd Creek 5.9 Cold — Class II
Rajek Creek 5.9 Cold — Class I
Drewek Creek 5.9 untyped — —
Lemke Creek 5.7 Cold — Class II
Sucker Creek 5.7 Cold — Class II
Einert Creek 5.6 untyped — Class I
Pat Smith Creek 5.4 Cold — Class II
Little Cain Creek 5.3 Cold — Class I
Fish Creek 5.2 Cold — Class II
Joe Martin Creek 5.2 Cold — Class II
Prast Creek 5.1 Cold — Class I
Oxbo Creek 5.0 Cold — Class I
Black Alder Creek 4.9 Cold — Class I
Manacke Creek 4.8 Cold — Class I
Little Brook 4.8 untyped — Class I
Ripley Creek 4.7 Cold — Class I
Little Oxbo Creek 4.7 Cold — Class I
Prospect Creek 4.7 Cold — Class I
Krueger Creek 4.6 Cold — Class I
Beaver Creek 4.6 untyped — —
Clearwater Creek 4.6 Cold — Class I
Potato Creek 4.5 untyped — —
Berry Creek 4.4 untyped — —
Skunk Creek 4.4 untyped — —
Porky Creek 4.2 untyped — —
Pine Creek 4.0 untyped — —
Silver Creek 3.8 Cold — Class I
Copper Creek 3.8 untyped — —
Stony Creek 3.8 untyped — Class II
Roberts Creek 3.8 untyped — —
East Branch Pratt Creek 3.4 Cold — Class II
Garrison Creek 3.3 untyped — —
Wolf Creek 3.2 Cold — Class I
Kippenberg Creek 3.2 Cold — Class I
Camp Creek 3.1 Cold — Class I
Camp Twentysix Creek 2.9 Cold — Class I
Bauers Creek 2.9 untyped — —
Coffee Creek 2.1 untyped — —
Alery Creek 1.7 untyped — —
Cemetery Slough 1.5 untyped — —
Wright Creek 0.6 untyped — —
Bull Junior Creek 0.6 untyped — —
Scotch Creek 0.4 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

221,734 acres in 17 units, which is 12.7% of the 1,740,422 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 177,425 80% 5
Wisconsin DNR 44,309 20% 12

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 northern Wisconsin, 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

42 insects are recorded from northern Wisconsin. 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.