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What fish run in the Escanaba River?

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The run corridor The mouth Escanaba No 1 Dam — 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 30 September 2026, north up, and it is a map of the river rather than of the lake it runs from.

5 species run the Escanaba River out of Lake Michigan — chinook salmon, coho salmon, lake-run brown trout, steelhead and lake trout. The corridor is 1.4 miles of run water over 2 NHD reaches, from the harbour mouth up to Escanaba No 1 Dam. As of 30 September 2026, chinook salmon is at first runners, coho salmon is at first runners and lake-run brown trout is at first runners.

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

The run species, one by one

Every species the corridor file records on this river, with the field mark that calls it at the net. Windows are MDNR's curated guidance; a species that runs twice on one calendar carries both entries.

Chinook salmon — king salmon

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. 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.

Window on this river
Aug–Oct · peak Oct
Size
Eight to twenty pounds in the run, and the occasional thirty.
Latin
Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
Stage as of 30 September 2026
First runners

Chinook salmon in Michigan — every river with a run →

Coho salmon — silver salmon

White gums with a dark tongue, and spots on the upper lobe of the tail only. Smaller and brighter than a king of the same date. Coho run behind the kings and further into the autumn, and they stay aggressive longer — a fish that will still chase a spoon three weeks into the river.

Window on this river
Sept–Nov · peak Oct–Nov
Size
Four to twelve pounds.
Latin
Oncorhynchus kisutch
Stage as of 30 September 2026
First runners

Coho salmon in Michigan — every river with a run →

Lake-run brown trout — coaster brown, on Superior

Buttery flanks with black and red spots, and no spotting on the tail worth the name — the mark that separates it from everything else in the run at the net. Runs with the autumn steelhead and behind the salmon, and is the most nocturnal fish in the corridor. Many hold over into February and March.

Window on this river
Sept–Nov · peak Oct
Size
Three to fifteen pounds.
Latin
Salmo trutta
Stage as of 30 September 2026
First runners

Lake-run brown trout in Michigan — every river with a run →

Steelhead — lake-run rainbow trout

A chrome rainbow off the lake, the stripe faint on a fresh fish and loud on one that has wintered in the river. Two runs on one calendar: a fall push that winters in the river and a spring run onto the gravel. The fall fish are the reason a January river is not empty.

Window on this river
Oct–May · peak Mar–Apr
Size
Five to twelve pounds, and bigger on the Manistee-type rivers.
Latin
Oncorhynchus mykiss
Stage as of 30 September 2026
Staging, 1 day out

Steelhead in Michigan — every river with a run →

Lake trout — togue, mackinaw

A char with pale spots on a dark ground and a deeply forked tail — the fork is the quickest way to call it from a brown at distance. Spawns mainly on the lake's own reefs. What reaches a river is the tributary edge of that, a fall movement into the lower river rather than a run in the sense the salmon are.

Window on this river
Oct–Nov · peak Oct–Nov
Size
Five to twenty pounds.
Entry temperature
42–55 °F
Latin
Salvelinus namaycush
Stage as of 30 September 2026
Staging, 1 day out

Lake trout carry their own seasons and bag limits in the Great Lakes and their tributaries, and they are not the trout limits.

Lake trout in Michigan — every river with a run →

More on the Escanaba River

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