Where do you access the Boardman River lake run?

Where to access the Boardman River lake run

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 30 September 2026, north up, and it is a map of the river rather than of the lake it runs from.

No state boating access site falls inside the Boardman River corridor's box. That is the record saying nothing rather than this page saying there is no way in. The run is 1.1 miles long and splits into the mouth at river mile 0.0–0.8 and the upstream at river mile 0.8–1.1; the pier and the mouth are boat and breakwall water and the miles above them are waded. The upstream end is Union Street Dam, which is where the fish stop and where the water above holds resident trout instead. The nearest town we map is Traverse City, 0.0 miles from the corridor's midpoint in a straight line, with the water north-east of the town.

1.1 corridor miles · Lake Michigan · windows curated from MDNR guidance · page built 30 September 2026

Access sites

No state boating access site falls inside this corridor's bounding box. That is the record saying nothing, not this page saying there is no way in — road crossings and public ground are how a river like this is reached, and the public land layer on the live map is where to look.

Wade-in or boat, by zone

Mouth — river mile 0.0–0.8 The harbour mouth and the first flat water. Boat and pier water, wadeable only where the river narrows above the turning basin.
Upstream — river mile 0.8–1.1 Above the first holding water, up to the ceiling. Wading and bank fishing; too small or too shallow for most boats.

Zones are the corridor file's, cut on river mile. This site holds no wadeability survey, so the note beside each zone is what the zone is and not a promise about any particular bank.

The upstream end

Union Street Dam, at 44.7617, -85.6225. Above it the water holds resident trout rather than run fish, so it is the top of the fishery as well as the top of the corridor.

Nearest towns

Straight-line distance from the corridor's midpoint to the towns we map. The roads are not mapped here, so these are not drive times.

Traverse City0.0 miles away — the water is north-east of it
Cadillac36.9 miles away — the water is north-west of it
Grayling45.0 miles away — the water is west of it

Nearby run rivers

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