Boardman River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

Peak run · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

1.1 miles of run water on the Boardman River, from Lake Michigan up to Union Street Dam. 4 species run it, on windows curated from MDNR guidance.

Open this river in the app

The run corridor The mouth Union Street Dam — the run stops here

The pale water is where chinook were holding on 2026-09-30 — 91% 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.

1.1corridor miles
2NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The Union Street Dam closes the Boardman — EGLE Michigan Dam Inventory, DamName 'Union Street Dam' — at the head of a 6.9-mile Lake Michigan corridor of 17 NHD reaches. The pier zone is unusually deep here, running 0.0 to 3.51, and it overlaps the rest: the river mouth sits 1.69 to 2.57, the lower river 2.57 to 6.86, and the water above the first holding water 6.34 to 6.86. One state boating access site, Shumsky Road, is recorded in the corridor.

The dates below come from the staging estimator and are its statewide set rather than a Boardman reading. Chinook stage off the harbour and run 15 Aug – 31 Oct, peaking 15 Aug – 15 Oct. Coho overlap and hold later, 1 Sep – 30 Nov, peaking 15 Sep – 15 Nov. Steelhead run 1 Oct – 31 Dec, peaking 15 Oct – 15 Dec, with a fall push that winters in the river and a spring peak in March and April. Lake-run browns stay latest, 20 Oct – 31 Jan.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the Boardman 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

Union Street Dam 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.

EGLE Michigan Dam Inventory, DamName 'Union Street Dam', River 'Boardman River'

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Mouth	the river mouth	0.0–0.8
Upstream	above the first holding water, up to the ceiling	0.8–1.1

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 Boardman River on the live map →
The Boardman 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.
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