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Lower Menominee River Dam, Michigan

Lower Menominee River Dam is the top of the Menominee River run — 6 anadromous species stack below it out of Lake Michigan.

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45.106667, -87.636667 · Menominee County · NID MI00532. Tap the map to open this water in the live app.

What the runs do here

Lower Menominee River Dam is the anadromous ceiling for the Menominee River — the top of the run out of Lake Michigan. Fish moving up from the lake stop here, which is 2.3 miles of river below this structure.

SpeciesIn the riverWhat it does
Chinook salmon Aug–Oct Fish stage off the harbour through August and enter as the river cools; the run peaks in October.
Coho salmon Sept–Nov Overlaps the chinook run and holds later; peak October and November.
Steelhead Oct–May Two runs on one calendar — a fall push from October that winters in the river, and the spring run that peaks March through April.
Lake-run brown trout Sept–Nov Runs with the salmon and stays after them; peak October.
Lake trout Oct–Nov A fall movement out of the lake into the lower river; peak mid-October to mid-November. Not a salmon run in scale — lake trout spawn mainly on the lake's own reefs and this is the tributary edge of that.
Lake sturgeon Apr–June Spawns on the gravel immediately below Lower Menominee River Dam, which is as far up as the fish can get. Peak is May, and the trigger is temperature rather than the date — the run starts around 55°F and is finished above about 64°F. The border river's run, and the one with a translocation programme above it — fish are moved past the lower dams to the Twin Falls and White Rapids reaches, so a sturgeon upstream of the corridor is there because somebody carried it. Catch-and-release only — lake sturgeon is a Michigan state-threatened species and the possession season is closed on this water. Do not lift a fish out of the river.

Curated calendar guidance from state run-timing prose, not regulation and not an observation of this river on any day. MDNR run-timing guidance and Michigan Fishing Guide prose, curated.

Ceiling cited as: USACE NID MI00532 'Lower Menominee River Dam', River or Stream Name 'Menominee River', Source Agency Michigan

The structure

Owner
Scott Paper Company Private
Purpose
Hydroelectric
Completed
1924
Type
Gravity
Height
29 ft
Length
656 ft
Spillway
Controlled, 452 ft wide
Storage
1,000 acre-ft · 150 acre pool
Drainage
4,051 sq mi
Condition
Not Rated · High hazard potential

From the National Inventory of Dams (USACE). Hazard potential is a downstream-consequence classification, not a statement about the structure's condition.

The water above and below

No designated coldwater reach within a mile and a half of this structure.

Water right now

GaugeDistanceTempFlow
Peshtigo River at Peshtigo 6.7 mi 61.9 °F —
Menominee River at Hwy 41 at Marinette, WI 0.5 mi — —
Menominee River near Mc Allister, WI 15.2 mi 59.3 °F 1,280 cfs

Live from USGS. A gauge miles away is a gauge miles away — the distance column is there so you can discount it. A hydro dam's releases move the flow below it on a schedule the gauge sees and this page does not. 2 of the gauges above are not sending water temperature at all — a stopped gauge still answers with the last value it ever sent and nothing to say so, so those rows carry a modelled figure where one can be fitted, marked as modelled, and a dash where it cannot.

Getting to it

Public access sites near the dam, straight-line distance. A dam itself is private property unless its owner says otherwise; these are the places the state lists as open.

Fly shops nearby

Open this water on the map →Every reach around it coloured by today's water temperature, with the access points along it.