Black River (South Haven) Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

Peak run · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

13.1 miles of run water on the Black River, from Lake Michigan up to the end of the mainstem. 4 species run it, on windows curated from MDNR guidance.

Open this river in the app

The run corridor The mouth The end of the mainstem The mouth — 51% Lower river — 24% The piers — 23%

The pale water is where chinook were holding on 2026-09-30 — 2% of the run was still out on Lake Michigan, which this picture does not reach. That day's gauge and lake readings were measured. Drawn 1 October 2026, north up, and it is a map of the river rather than of the lake it runs from.

13.1corridor miles
23NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The Black River at South Haven is carried as a Lake Michigan corridor with no ceiling, and the reason is worth stating plainly: the 'Kellogg Avenue Dam' the river was deferred for could not be found in any inventory, and appears not to exist. The USACE NID lists no dam on the Black River mainstem in Van Buren or Allegan County, OSM has no dam at South Haven, and the nearest real structure, Bangor Dam (NID MI00384), sits on the South Branch rather than the water the fish run up. So the corridor runs 13.1 miles over 23 NHD reaches — pierheads to river mile 1.6, mouth to 2.3, then lower river to 13.1 — with one state boating access site, Black River, inside it.

The windows carry dates because the estimator models this river; the dates are its statewide set, not a Black River reading. Chinook run 15 Aug – 31 Oct, coho 1 Sep – 30 Nov, steelhead 1 Oct – 31 Dec peaking 15 Oct – 15 Dec, and lake-run browns latest, 20 Oct – 31 Jan, peaking 1 Nov – 15 Jan.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the Black 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. This river is one of the sixteen the staging estimator models, so the window is shown in the estimator's dated form. Those dates are one statewide set, the same on all sixteen rivers, and no more river-specific than the months they restate — what the estimator adds here is the daily staging read, not a sharper calendar.

Chinook salmon — 15 Aug – 31 Oct peak 15 Aug – 15 Oct Peak run. Fish stage off the harbour through August and enter as the river cools; the run peaks in October.
Coho salmon — 1 Sep – 30 Nov peak 15 Sep – 15 Nov Peak run. Overlaps the chinook run and holds later; peak October and November.
Steelhead — 1 Oct – 31 Dec peak 15 Oct – 15 Dec 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.
Lake-run brown trout — 20 Oct – 31 Jan peak 1 Nov – 15 Jan Off-season. Runs with the salmon and stays after them; peak October.

The ceiling

No barrier inside the run. The corridor runs to the end of the mainstem, which is a claim from the National Inventory of Dams rather than a gap in the data — the NID lists no structure on this river.

The 'Kellogg Avenue Dam' this river was deferred for could not be found in any inventory, and the reason appears to be that it is not there: the USACE NID lists no dam on the Black River mainstem in Van Buren or Allegan County, OSM has no dam at South Haven, and the only Kellogg Dam a search surfaces is on Kellogg Creek in Milwaukie, Oregon. The nearest real structure is the Bangor Dam (NID MI00384) and it is on the South Branch, not the mainstem, so it is not a ceiling for the river the fish run up. Treated as a corridor with no ceiling rather than left deferred for a barrier that does not exist.

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Pier	the pierheads and the harbour mouth	0.0–1.6
Mouth	the river mouth	1.6–2.3
Lower	the lower river	2.3–13.1

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

State boating access sites inside the corridor's box, from the MDNR Boating Access Sites record. A ramp is not a wade-in — these are where a boat and a car go, and the bank between them is a question for the public land layer on the live map.

Black River walk in · Black River - South Branch · County

Open the Black River (South Haven) on the live map →

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.
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.
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.

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