Bear River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

First runners · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

0.1 miles of run water on the Bear River, from Lake Michigan up to Lake Street Dam and Flume. 4 species run it, on windows curated from MDNR guidance.

Open this river in the app

The run corridor The mouth Lake Street Dam and Flume — the run stops here

The colour is this river's run stage today, read off MDNR run-timing guidance. Where along the corridor the fish are is not modelled here — only the sixteen rivers the staging estimator covers carry that. Drawn 1 October 2026, north up, and it is a map of the river rather than of the lake it runs from.

0.1corridor miles
1NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The Bear is the shortest run corridor on this stretch of Lake Michigan: 0.1 mile, a single NHD reach, and one zone. The Lake Street Dam and Flume closes it almost immediately — USACE NID MI00768, source agency Michigan — so the whole of the run is the pierheads and harbour mouth, river mile 0.0 to 0.05. There is no lower river below the ceiling to speak of, and no state boating access sites are recorded inside the corridor.

The calendar is the standard Lake Michigan four, held in that very short piece of water. Chinook stage off the harbour through August and enter as the river cools, Aug–Oct with an October peak. Coho overlap them and hold later, Sept–Nov, peaking October and November. Lake-run browns run with the salmon and stay after them, Sept–Nov, peaking October. Steelhead carry two runs on one calendar, Oct–May: a fall push that winters in the river and a spring peak in March and April. The windows are month-grained.

The questions about this river

One page each, answered from the same records as this one.

What runs the Bear River

Each window is calendar guidance curated from the state's own run-timing prose, not a regulation and not an observation. The stage beside it is this site's reading of that window against 1 October 2026.

Chinook salmon — Aug–Oct peak Oct First runners. Fish stage off the harbour through August and enter as the river cools; the run peaks in October.
Coho salmon — Sept–Nov peak Oct–Nov First runners. Overlaps the chinook run and holds later; peak October and November.
Lake-run brown trout — Sept–Nov peak Oct First runners. Runs with the salmon and stays after them; peak October.
Steelhead — Oct–May peak Mar–Apr Staging, 1 day out. Two runs on one calendar — a fall push from October that winters in the river, and the spring run that peaks March through April.

The ceiling

Lake Street Dam and Flume is where the run stops. Everything above it is upstream of the fishery — a fish cannot pass it, so the water above holds resident trout and not run fish, whatever the calendar says.

USACE NID MI00768 'Lake Street Dam and Flume', River or Stream Name 'Bear River', Source Agency Michigan

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Mouth	the river mouth	0.0–0.1

River miles from the harbour mouth, walked up the NHDPlus HR mainstem. Fish arrive at the bottom of this table and work up it as the river cools and rises.

Access

No state boating access site falls inside this corridor's box. That is the record saying nothing, not this page saying there is no way in — the public land layer on the live map is the better answer for a river fished from the bank.

Open the Bear River on the live map →
The Bear River river page — gauges, temperature and regulations by reach →

Regulations

Great Lakes tributary rules are their own rules: seasons, gear and possession on run water differ from the inland trout regulations, and they differ by river and often by reach. Michigan's regulation summary is here, and the state's own guide is the regulation.

Tackle

General guidance by species, not by river — there is no record of what a given river fishes best with, and a page that invented one would be worse than a page that says so.

Chinook salmon 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.
Coho salmon Spinning: a medium 7'–8'6" rod, 10–14 lb line, small spoons and spinners. Coho chase, and a moving bait outfishes a still one.
Lake-run brown trout Spinning: a medium 7'–8' rod, 8–12 lb line, minnow plugs and spoons fished at dusk and after dark, which is when these fish move.
Steelhead Float fishing: a long 10'6"–13' rod, 8–12 lb main line, spawn bags, beads or jigs under a slip float — the method that covers a run without wading it.

Nearby run rivers

The next corridors up and down this shore, nearest first.

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