BirdTrout

Peshtigo River Watershed, Wisconsin

1,199 miles of mapped stream across 1,219 square miles of drainage in Marinette, Forest, Oconto counties, in 88 named streams. Wisconsin designates 526 of those miles as trout water, on 79 streams. The 1 mainstem gauge with a July record read 75.5°F in July.

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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 04030105 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,199 mi
of mapped stream
2,356 NHD reaches
1,219 sq mi
drainage area
780,444 acres
75.5°F
July water temperature at the gauges
1 mainstem gauge, mean 75.5°F
229,653 ac
public land
29.4% of the basin · 11 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 47% of this basin's stream miles (567.3 of 1,199); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

567.3 of the 567.3 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 47% of it.

What makes this watershed distinctive

The Peshtigo River runs 118.7 miles through this basin as Class II water, the second-longest single designated stretch in Wisconsin on this site. Around it, Otter Creek runs 35.3 miles at Class I and II, the Rat River 38.8 at Class II and III, and Eagle Creek 20.2 miles as Class I. WDNR designates 526 of the basin's 684 mapped stream miles on 79 of its 88 named streams, and classifies 621 miles cold. Public ground is 230,165 acres across 1,219 square miles of Marinette, Forest and Oconto counties: 134,821 acres of Nicolet National Forest, 63,673 of Marinette County Forest and the 11,785-acre Governor Earl Peshtigo River State Forest, which follows the river itself. No USGS gauge in the basin holds a July temperature record.

Every named stream in the basin

All 88 of them, longest first. 56 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
Peshtigo River 118.7 Cold — Class II
Rat River 38.8 Cold — Class II, Class III
Otter Creek 35.3 Cold — Class I, Class II
Middle Inlet 20.2 Cold — Class I, Class II
Eagle Creek 20.2 Cold — Class I
North Branch Peshtigo River 19.5 Cold — Class II
Little Peshtigo River 19.1 untyped — —
Armstrong Creek 19.0 Cold — Class I, Class II
South Branch Beaver Creek 16.6 Cold — Class I, Class II
Upper Middle Inlet 16.5 Cold — Class I, Class II
North Fork Thunder River 14.1 Cold — Class I
North Branch Beaver Creek 13.5 Cold — Class I, Class II
Middle Branch Peshtigo River 12.9 Cold — Class II, Class III
The Outlet 11.8 Cold — Class I
Murphy Creek 9.9 Cold — Class I, Class II
Lower Middle Inlet 9.5 Cold — Class I
Whisky Creek 9.5 Cold — Class II
McDonald Creek 9.3 Cold — Class I
Left Foot Creek 9.0 Cold — Class II
Messenger Creek 8.6 Cold — Class I, Class II
Medicine Brook 8.5 Cold — Class I
Smith Creek 8.2 Cold — Class I
Handsaw Creek 7.8 Cold — Class I, Class II
Thunder River 7.8 Cold — Class II
Stoney Creek 7.4 Cold — Class I
Camp Eight Creek 7.0 untyped — Class III
Little River 6.8 untyped — —
Meadow Brook 6.7 Cold — Class I
South Branch Peshtigo River 6.6 Cold — Class II
Little Eagle Creek 6.0 Cold — Class I
West Branch Peshtigo River 5.9 Cold — Class II
Hay Creek 5.8 Cold — Class I
Rock Creek 5.7 Cold — Class I, Class II
Halley Creek 5.5 Cold — Class II
Spring Creek 5.5 untyped — —
Shabodock Creek 5.2 Cold — Class II
Honey Creek 5.0 Cold — Class II
South Fork Thunder River 4.8 Cold — Class I
Forbes Creek 4.7 Cold — Class I
Haymeadow Creek 4.6 Cold — Class II
Catwillow Creek 4.5 Cold — Class II
Beaver Creek 4.5 untyped — Class III
Kersten Creek 4.4 Cold — Class II
East Thunder Creek 4.4 Cold — Class I
Thunder Lake Inlet 4.4 Cold — Class I, Class II
Swanson Creek 4.3 Cold — Class II
Peterman Brook 4.3 Cold — Class II
West Branch Armstrong Creek 4.1 Cold — Class II
Swede John Creek 4.0 Cold — Class I
Spencer Creek 3.7 Cold — Class I
Kufner Creek 3.6 Cold — Class II
Drake Creek 3.6 Cold — Class II
Sixtytwo Creek 3.6 untyped — —
Whiting Creek 3.6 Cold — Class II
Marsh Number 10 Creek 3.4 Cold — Class II
Michigan Creek 3.3 Cold — Class I
Newman Creek 3.1 untyped — Class III
Iron Springs Creek 3.0 Cold — Class I
Walker Creek 2.9 Cold — Class I
Upper Inlet 2.8 untyped — —
Piledriver Creek 2.7 Cold — Class II
Raymond Creek 2.6 Cold — Class II
Homestead Creek 2.6 Cold — Class II
Swamp Creek 2.5 Cold — Class II
Pemma Creek 2.5 Cold — Class II
Woods Lake Outlet 2.5 untyped — —
Camp Five Creek 2.4 Cold — Class I
Camp Twenty Creek 2.2 Cold — Class I
Colburn Creek 2.2 Cold — Class II
Mexico Creek 2.2 Cold — Class II
School Creek 2.2 Cold — Class II
Plumadore Creek 2.1 Cold — Class I
Brandywine Creek 2.1 Cold — Class I
Gruman Creek 2.0 Cold — Class I
Bills Creek 1.9 Cold — Class I
Indian River 1.6 untyped — —
Campbell Creek 1.6 Cold — Class I
Swan Creek 1.5 Cold — Class II
West Thunder Creek 1.5 Cold — Class I
Kokots Creek 1.4 untyped — Class III
Bear Creek 1.4 untyped — Class III
Thunder Lake Outlet 1.3 untyped — Class III
Johnson Creek 1.2 Cold — Class I
Elbow Creek 1.2 Cold — Class I
Jones Creek 1.1 Cold — Class II
Bobs Creek 0.7 untyped — —
Flanners Creek 0.7 untyped — —
Coldwater Creek 0.7 Cold — Class II

Public land in the watershed

229,653 acres in 11 units, which is 29.4% of the 780,444 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 134,821 59% 1
County forest 75,084 33% 3
Wisconsin DNR 19,748 9% 7

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.