Chinook salmon Run in Michigan

Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, king salmon — 35 Michigan rivers on this map carry a run of it, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. 35 of them are inside a window as of 1 October 2026.

Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, the king salmon, runs 35 Michigan rivers across two lakes — Lake Michigan and Lake Huron — which is what sets the state's chinook apart from a single-lake fishery. The window on the named rivers is 15 August to 31 October, with the peak running 15 August to 15 October, and those dates are the staging estimator's single statewide set rather than a per- river measurement. The longest corridors are the Pere Marquette at 59.5 miles and the Little Manistee at 57.3, both Lake Michigan water; the Rifle River, at 55.0 miles, is the Huron entry on that list, followed by the Muskegon at 52.0 and the Grand at 42.2.

A king is a dark, heavy salmon with a black gum line and black spots on both lobes of the tail; the gum line is the field mark that separates it from a coho at the net. Eight to twenty pounds in the run, with the occasional thirty. Kings hold off the mouth until the river cools into the 60s F and then move on a rise, and they stop feeding as they ripen, so a take is territorial rather than hungry.

Where these rivers are

35 run rivers on 2 shores, drawn one shore at a time and each river in the colour of its own run stage today. One frame over all of them would be mostly open water.

Lake Michigan — the Michigan shore26 run rivers on this shore, 26 inside a window today Peak run · First runners

Lake Huron — the Michigan shore9 run rivers on this shore, 9 inside a window today Peak run

Drawn 1 October 2026. The ground is the subbasin mesh the app scores in, so the coastline is where the mesh stops rather than a separate shoreline; the mark at each river is its mouth, drawn for every river including the handful whose whole run corridor is under a mile and has no line to show.

Where it runs, and when

Ranked by the rivers the staging estimator models first — the sixteen systems with a USGS temperature gauge behind them — then by corridor miles. Neither is a measure of fishing, and nothing on this page ranks a fishery.

River	Lake	Window	Peak	Miles	Stage
Pere Marquette River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	59.5	Peak run
Little Manistee River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	57.3	Peak run
Rifle River	Huron	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	55.0	Peak run
Muskegon River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	52.0	Peak run
Grand River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	42.2	Peak run
White River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	36.6	Peak run
Kalamazoo River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	36.4	Peak run
Manistee River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	29.9	Peak run
St. Joseph River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	24.3	Peak run
Platte River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	17.3	Peak run
Ocqueoc River	Huron	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	15.4	Peak run
Black River (South Haven)	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	13.1	Peak run
Betsie River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	12.5	Peak run
Au Sable River	Huron	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	10.2	Peak run
Boardman River	Michigan	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	1.1	Peak run
Thunder Bay River	Huron	15 Aug – 31 Oct	15 Aug – 15 Oct	1.0	Peak run
Ford River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	107.3	First runners
Cedar River (Menominee County)	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	66.2	First runners
Carp River (Mackinac County)	Huron	Aug–Oct	Sep	42.4	Peak run
Days River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	28.1	First runners
Jordan River	Michigan	Aug–Sept	Sep	23.2	Tail-off
Whitefish River (Delta County)	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	11.7	First runners
Swan River	Huron	Aug–Oct	Sep	11.4	Peak run
Pentwater River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	10.4	First runners
Tawas River	Huron	Aug–Oct	Sep	6.0	Peak run
Rogue River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	5.6	First runners
Brevoort River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	5.5	First runners
Nunns Creek	Huron	Aug–Oct	Sep	5.1	Peak run
Boyne River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	4.0	First runners
Menominee River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	2.3	First runners
Cheboygan River	Huron	Aug–Oct	Sep	1.7	Peak run
Manistique River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	1.5	First runners
Escanaba River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	1.4	First runners
Big Sable River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	1.1	First runners
Bear River	Michigan	Aug–Oct	Oct	0.1	First runners

Stage as of 1 October 2026. It moves every day and this page does not — current conditions are here.

Identification

A dark, heavy salmon with a black gum line and black spots on both lobes of the tail. The gum line is the field mark that separates it from a coho at the net.

Size

Eight to twenty pounds in the run, and the occasional thirty.

Behaviour in the river

Kings hold off the mouth until the river cools into the 60s F and then move on a rise. They stop feeding as they ripen, so a take is territorial rather than hungry.

Tackle and tactics

Spinning: a medium-heavy 8'6"–9' rod, 15–20 lb line, heavy spoons and crankbaits off the pier, skein or spawn under a float in the river.
Fly: a 8–9 weight with sink tip, egg patterns and heavy leeches, 12–15 lb tippet. A king in a fast river is a tackle problem before it is a fishing one.

Regulations

Great Lakes tributary rules are not the inland trout rules, and they differ by river and often by reach. Michigan's regulation summary is here; the state's own guide is the regulation.

The rest of the run

Open the lake-run map →Every run river, with where the fish are holding today.Or get BirdTrout on the App Store