Ounce

I've always thought it a shame that this river is in the far NW part of the state, rather than the far NE ... just seems like the Ounce River should be nearer the village of Pound, WI (185 miles away).

So, that aside ... this is definitely small (and will be hard to catch with enough water to float your boat), with drainage at put-in of only 19 square miles, growing only to 21.2 square miles by the take-out. Being this small, and running (in part) through Bayfield County Forest, it seems very likely to have a problem with wood.

So ... why should there be any interest in this? This 2.6 mile stretch of river starts with a half-mile of flatwater (~5FPM), a half-mile at ~34FPM, a full mile at nearly 70 FPM, before easing back to 20 FPM for the last half-mile (overall gradient of 40 FPM). Again, it will take unusually wet conditions to make this little river runnable, but it seems worth an exploration! (NOTE: class/rating in summary section above is very tentative, since we have no firsthand reports to relate as yet.)

While the river as a whole (and the first 0.9 mile of this listed run) heads in a southwesterly direction, it takes a right turn and heads (nearly straight as an arrow) northwesterly for nearly 1.5 miles before making an abrupt left turn to resume its southwesterly direction before and beyond our listed take-out.

The early (flatwater) going appears on aerial views to be fairly wide and free of wood, but the gradient stretch is heavily obscured by the forest (so can't tell from aerials whether there's evidence of any rocks, dells, or rapids). If there would be boatable rapids of consequence, it would be poetic to say 'I got pounded by the Ounce!'

Anybody ever check it out? Is it totally wooded up (in the gradient stretch)? Does it have rapids? Or does it fritter away that gradient without creating any meaningful whitewater? REPORT!