BirdTrout

Lower Chippewa River Watershed, Wisconsin

2,119 miles of mapped stream across 2,061 square miles of drainage in Chippewa, Dunn, Taylor, Eau Claire, Pepin, Pierce, Buffalo, St. Croix counties, in 67 named streams. Wisconsin designates 334 of those miles as trout water, on 35 streams. The 2 mainstem gauges with a July record read between 66.2 and 72.0°F in July.

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 07050005 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

2,119 mi
of mapped stream
4,134 NHD reaches
2,061 sq mi
drainage area
1,319,024 acres
66.2–72.0°F
July water temperature at the gauges
2 mainstem gauges, mean 69.1°F
129,298 ac
public land
9.8% 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 19% of this basin's stream miles (400.4 of 2,119); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

400.4 of the 400.4 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 19% of it.

What makes this watershed distinctive

The Lower Chippewa drains 2,061 square miles of Chippewa, Dunn, Taylor and Eau Claire counties, and its 86.8 miles of mainstem carry no trout designation — this is a basin whose trout water is in the tributary creeks. The Eau Galle River runs 42.9 miles at Class II, Elk Creek 35.5 and Duncan Creek 34.4 at Class I and II, Plum Creek 30.0 the same, and Lowes Creek 26.8 miles at Class II. WDNR designates 334 of the basin's 659 mapped stream miles on 35 of its 67 named streams, and classifies 423 miles cold. Public ground is 129,298 acres, led by 81,900 acres of Chequamegon National Forest with 18,935 of Chippewa County Forest and the 12,348-acre Tiffany Wildlife Area on the lower river. No gauge here holds a July record.

Every named stream in the basin

All 67 of them, longest first. 23 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
Chippewa River 86.8 untyped — —
Eau Galle River 42.9 Cold — Class II
Elk Creek 35.5 Cold — Class I, Class II
Duncan Creek 34.4 Cold — Class I, Class II
Plum Creek 30.0 Cold — Class I, Class II
Lowes Creek 26.8 Cold — Class II
Missouri Creek 19.2 untyped — Class III
Bear Creek 18.0 Cold — Class II, Class III
Cady Creek 16.8 Cold — Class I
Buffalo Slough 16.8 untyped — —
Rock Creek 16.4 Cold — Class II, Class III
McCann Creek 16.2 Cold — Class I
Hay Creek 16.1 Cold — Class I, Class II
O'Neil Creek 16.0 untyped — —
Muddy Creek 13.8 Cold — Class II, Class III
Coon Creek 13.1 Cold — Class II, Class III
Little Bear Creek 13.0 Cold — Class II
Arkansaw Creek 11.4 Cold — Class II
Porcupine Creek 10.1 Cold — Class II
Knights Creek 9.8 Cold — Class II
Clear Creek 9.1 Cold — Class I
Little Plum Creek 9.1 Cold — Class II
Fall Creek 8.4 Cold — Class II
Little Missouri Creek 7.9 untyped — —
Duscham Creek 7.4 untyped — —
Taylor Creek 7.2 untyped — —
Big Elk Creek 6.9 Cold — Class I
North Branch Little Bear Creek 6.8 Cold — Class II
Little Arkansaw Creek 6.6 untyped — —
Lousy Creek 6.1 Cold — Class I
Ninemile Slough 6.1 untyped — —
Trout Creek 5.9 Cold — Class I
Spring Creek 5.9 Cold — Class II
Tiffany Creek 5.8 untyped — —
Little Hay Creek 5.6 Cold — Class I
Como Creek 5.5 Cold — Class I
Beaver Creek 5.3 Cold — Class I
Rock Elm Creek 5.1 untyped — —
Pine Creek 5.0 untyped — —
Little Rock Creek 4.9 untyped — —
Graham Creek 4.8 Cold — Class II
West Branch Knights Creek 4.4 Cold — Class I
Dark Slough 4.4 untyped — —
Willow Creek 4.3 untyped — —
Sherman Creek 4.3 untyped — —
Center Creek 4.3 Cold — Class II
Sixteenth Creek 3.0 untyped — —
Kelley Creek 2.9 untyped — —
Pinch Creek 2.8 untyped — —
Barnes Branch 2.8 untyped — —
North Branch Knights Creek 2.7 Cold — Class II
Schoolhouse Creek 2.6 Cold — Class II
Mines Creek 2.6 Cold — Class II
Cranberry Creek 2.4 untyped — —
Thompson Slough 2.4 untyped — —
Lohn Creek 2.3 untyped — —
Burkhart Creek 2.3 Cold — Class II
Little Buffalo Slough 2.0 untyped — —
Eau Claire River 1.8 untyped — —
Little Niagara Creek 1.7 untyped — —
Old Bear Creek 1.4 untyped — —
Golden Creek 1.0 untyped — —
Shively Slough 1.0 untyped — —
Swinger Slough 0.8 untyped — —
Smith Slough 0.4 untyped — —
Red Cedar River 0.1 untyped — —
West Creek 0.0 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

129,298 acres in 17 units, which is 9.8% of the 1,319,024 acres the basin covers. Private inholdings carried in the same source file are excluded, here and on the map.

Managing agency Acres Share Units
US Forest Service 81,900 63% 1
Wisconsin DNR 28,463 22% 13
County forest 18,935 15% 1
US Fish and Wildlife Service 0 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.

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.