Ford River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

First runners · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

107.3 miles of run water on the Ford River, from Lake Michigan up to the end of the mainstem. 5 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 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.

107.3corridor miles
57NHD reaches
5species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The Ford carries 107.3 miles of run corridor to Lake Michigan across just 57 NHD reaches — a long corridor cut into remarkably few pieces. There is no barrier inside the run — NID lists no structure on this mainstem, so the corridor is taken to run to the end of it, a claim rather than a gap. The pierheads and harbour mouth cover the first 1.19 miles, the river mouth reaches 2.3, and the lower river runs from there the whole remaining way to 107.3.

Chinook stage off the harbour through August and enter as the river cools, on an August-to-October window peaking in October; coho overlap them and hold later, peaking October and November. Lake-run browns peak in October, and steelhead run October through May on two runs, one wintering in the river and one peaking March into April. The Ford also takes a fall lake trout movement into the lower river between 42 and 55°F, peaking mid-October to mid-November — the tributary edge of reef spawning, under its own Great Lakes seasons and limits. The windows are month-grained.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the Ford 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.
Lake trout — Oct–Nov peak Oct–Nov42–55°F Staging, 1 day out. A fall movement out of the lake into the lower river; peak mid-October to mid-November. Not a salmon run in scale — lake trout spawn mainly on the lake's own reefs and this is the tributary edge of that.

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.

No barrier inside the run. NID lists no structure on this mainstem, so the corridor runs to the end of it — a claim, not a gap.

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Pier	the pierheads and the harbour mouth	0.0–1.2
Mouth	the river mouth	1.2–2.3
Lower	the lower river	2.3–107.3

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 Ford River on the live map →
The Ford 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.

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

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.
Lake trout Spinning: medium-heavy tackle, 12–17 lb line, spoons and heavy jigs worked deep in the lower river and off the pierheads.

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