BirdTrout

Red Cedar River Watershed, Wisconsin

2,801 miles of mapped stream across 1,891 square miles of drainage in Barron, Dunn, Washburn, Rusk, St. Croix, Chippewa, Sawyer counties, in 96 named streams. Wisconsin designates 592 of those miles as trout water, on 77 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 07050007 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

2,801 mi
of mapped stream
5,177 NHD reaches
1,891 sq mi
drainage area
1,210,174 acres
85,638 ac
public land
7.1% 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 24% of this basin's stream miles (682.7 of 2,801); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

682.7 of the 682.7 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 24% of it.

What makes this watershed distinctive

The Red Cedar carries 592 designated miles on 77 of its 96 named streams — out of 974 mapped miles, with 816 classified cold, the third-largest cold total in the state on this site. The mainstem's own 70.5 miles are undesignated; the Hay River runs 67.6 miles at Class II, its South Fork 38.8 at Class I and II, the Yellow River 41.3 at Class II, Lower Pine Creek 28.4 at Class II and III and Wilson Creek 24.9 at Class I and II. Public ground is 85,638 acres across 1,891 square miles of Barron, Dunn, Washburn and Rusk counties, and it is county forest throughout: Rusk at 31,389 acres, Washburn at 26,440, Barron at 13,908 and Sawyer at 10,710. No gauge in the basin holds a July record.

Every named stream in the basin

All 96 of them, longest first. 47 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
Red Cedar River 70.5 untyped — —
Hay River 67.6 Cold — Class II
Yellow River 41.3 Cold — Class II
South Fork Hay River 38.8 Cold — Class I, Class II
Lower Pine Creek 28.4 Cold — Class II, Class III
Wilson Creek 24.9 Cold — Class I, Class II
Turtle Creek 24.4 Cold — Class II
Moose Ear Creek 22.5 Cold — Class I, Class II
Spring Creek 22.2 Cold — Class II
Hay Creek 21.3 Cold — Class II
Tiffany Creek 20.2 Cold — Class I, Class II
Upper Pine Creek 19.0 Cold — Class I, Class II
Pokegama Creek 18.4 Cold — Class II
Beaver Creek 17.3 Cold — Class I
Vermillion River 15.4 untyped — —
Trout Creek 15.2 Cold — Class II
Otter Creek 13.2 Cold — Class II
Fourmile Creek 13.0 Cold — Class II
Sandy Creek 12.9 Cold — Class I
Gilbert Creek 12.9 Cold — Class II
Sucker Creek 11.9 Cold — Class I
Silver Creek 11.4 Cold — Class I, Class II
Brill River 10.6 Cold — Class II
Big Beaver Creek 10.4 Cold — Class I, Class II
Bear Creek 10.2 untyped — —
Annis Creek 10.2 Cold — Class II
Hemlock Creek 9.9 Cold — Class I, Class II, Class III
Bolen Creek 9.9 Cold — Class I
Rock Creek 9.8 Cold — Class I, Class II
Sand Creek 9.3 Cold — Class I
North Branch Wilson Creek 9.3 Cold — Class II
Little Elk Creek 9.2 Cold — Class II
Engle Creek 9.1 Cold — Class I
Lightning Creek 9.0 Cold — Class II
Vance Creek 9.0 Cold — Class I
Johnson Creek 8.7 Cold — Class II
Eighteenmile Creek 8.7 Cold — Class I, Class II
Lambs Creek 8.3 untyped — —
Irving Creek 7.9 Cold — Class II
Thirty-three Creek 7.8 Cold — Class I
Sweeny Pond 7.8 untyped — —
Pigeon Creek 7.7 Cold — Class I, Class III
South Fork Lower Pine Creek 7.3 Cold — Class II
German Creek 7.2 untyped — —
Little Beaver Creek 7.0 Cold — Class II
Knuteson Creek 6.9 Cold — Class I
Dorrity Creek 6.9 Cold — Class I, Class II
Bronken Creek 6.9 Cold — Class II
North Branch Gilbert Creek 6.9 Cold — Class I, Class II
Little Bear Creek 6.7 Cold — Class II
Running Valley Creek 6.5 Cold — Class II
Hickey Creek 6.2 Cold — Class I, Class II
Popple Creek 6.2 Cold — Class II
Little Otter Creek 6.1 Cold — Class II
Johns Creek 6.0 Cold — Class II
Spring Brook 6.0 Cold — Class I
Brown Creek 6.0 Cold — Class I, Class II
East Branch Upper Pine Creek 5.9 Cold — Class II
Fortyone Creek 5.7 Cold — Class I
Chetek River 5.7 untyped — —
Blairmoor Branch 5.7 Cold — Class II
South Fork Trout Creek 5.6 untyped — —
Little Lambs Creek 5.6 Cold — Class II
Connors Creek 5.4 Cold — Class I
Clack Creek 5.4 Cold — Class II
Flayton Creek 5.2 Cold — Class II
South Tiffany Creek 5.2 Cold — Class I
Rush Creek 5.2 Cold — Class II
South Branch Gilbert Creek 5.1 Cold — Class II
Louler Creek 5.0 Cold — Class I
Tainter Creek 5.0 Cold — Class I
Sioux Creek 4.7 Cold — Class II
Tiller Creek 4.6 Cold — Class II
Ryan Creek 4.5 Cold — Class I
Little Vance Creek 4.3 Cold — Class I
North Branch Upper Pine Creek 4.1 Cold — Class I
Heron Creek 4.0 untyped — —
Jones Creek 4.0 Cold — Class I
Middle Branch Gilbert Creek 3.7 Cold — Class I
Washburn Farm Creek 3.5 Cold — Class II
Coon Creek 3.4 untyped — —
Quarter Creek 3.3 Cold — Class II
Meadows Creek 3.2 untyped — —
Cruikshank Creek 3.1 untyped — —
Moon Creek 2.9 untyped — —
Quaderer Creek 2.8 untyped — —
Eddies Creek 2.8 untyped — —
Crosby Creek 2.2 Cold — Class II
Tenmile Creek 2.1 untyped — —
Benson Creek 2.0 Cold — Class I
Rice Creek 1.9 Cold — Class I
South Fork Hemlock Creek 1.7 Cold — Class I
Yarnell Creek 1.6 Cold — Class I
Pike Slough 1.5 untyped — —
Malviney Creek 1.2 untyped — —
The Narrows 1.1 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

85,638 acres in 17 units, which is 7.1% of the 1,210,174 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 83,234 97% 6
Wisconsin DNR 2,404 3% 11

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.