BirdTrout
Open the map
Sabin Dam, Michigan
Sabin Dam sits above the Union Street Dam, which is the ceiling for the Boardman River, so no lake run reaches this water.
Open in BirdTrout44.707993, -85.622859 · Grand Traverse County · NID MI00513. Tap the map to open this water in the live app.
What the runs do here
No lake run reaches this dam. The Boardman River's anadromous ceiling is the Union Street Dam, downstream of here — fish out of Lake Michigan stop there, so salmon and steelhead never arrive at this structure and a run calendar on this page would be an invention.
The structure
- Owner
- Grand Traverse County Local Government
- Purpose
- Recreation
- Completed
- 1906
- Type
- Earth
- Height
- 34 ft
- Length
- 820 ft
- Spillway
- Controlled, 48 ft wide
- Storage
- 435 acre-ft · 40 acre pool
- Drainage
- 269 sq mi
- Condition
- Satisfactory · 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
- Boardman River 0.69 mi from the dam · Cold transitional small river (MDNR VSEC) · typed Cold-transitional
Coldwater designation is the state's own classification. A dam sits on one river and this list is every designated reach within a mile and a half of it, so a tributary mouth shows up here too.
Water right now
| Gauge | Distance | Temp | Flow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manistee River near Sherman, MI | 19.1 mi | 54.3 °F | 945 cfs |
| Boardman River at Traverse City, MI | 4.0 mi | — | — |
| Boardman R above Brown Bridge Road Nr Mayfield, MI | 9.8 mi | — | 115 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
The dam sits on or beside Natural Education Reserve, County.
- Silver Lake 2.8 mi · boat launch · Silver Lake
- Shumsky Road 4.2 mi · canoe launch · Boardman River
- Bass Lake North 4.4 mi · boat launch · Bass Lake
- Arbutus Lake 5.5 mi · boat launch · Arbutus Lake
- Spider Lake 6.3 mi · boat launch · Spider Lake
- Ellis Lake 6.7 mi · boat launch · Ellis Lake
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
- Hawkins Outfitters 3.5 mi · Traverse City
- Streamside Orvis 3.8 mi · Traverse City
- The Northern Angler 3.9 mi · Traverse City · +1-231-933-4730
- North Shore Outfitters 29.0 mi · Northport
- Andy's Tackle Box 33.8 mi · Brethren