Little Manistee River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

Peak run · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

57.3 miles of run water on the Little Manistee 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 piers — 9%

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.

57.3corridor miles
49NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The Little Manistee runs 57.3 miles of corridor and 49 NHD reaches to Lake Michigan with no ceiling drawn on it. The MDNR egg-take weir at Stronach on the lower river is a real seasonal barrier, but it is a weir rather than a dam, it is absent from the NID and the EGLE inventory, and it is in and out of the water by season — a ceiling that moves is not one this file can cite a coordinate for, so no upstream zone exists here. The pierheads and harbour mouth run to river mile 1.11, the mouth to 4.68, and the lower river holds everything from there to 57.34.

The dated windows are the estimator's, the same set it applies to every river it models. Chinook run 15 August to 31 October, coho 1 September to 30 November, steelhead 1 October to 31 December, and lake-run brown trout 20 October to 31 January with a peak from 1 November to 15 January. The weir is the source of the Michigan steelhead strain stocked across the Great Lakes; the spring steelhead peak falls in April.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the Little Manistee 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.
Steelhead — 1 Oct – 31 Dec peak 15 Oct – 15 Dec Staging, 1 day out. The Little Manistee weir is the source of the Michigan steelhead strain stocked across the Great Lakes; spring peak in 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.

No coordinate is cited for the top of this run. MDNR's Stronach egg-take weir is a real seasonal barrier on the lower river and is in no dam inventory, so no coordinate is cited for it. The corridor is drawn to the end of the mapped mainstem, which is where the record stops.

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Pier	the pierheads and the harbour mouth	0.0–1.1
Mouth	the river mouth	1.1–4.7
Lower	the lower river	4.7–57.3

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

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.

Big Bass Lake boat launch · Big Bass Lake · 17 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd
Gun Lake boat launch · Gun Lake · 10 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd
Lincoln Bridge State Forest Campground canoe launch · Pine River · 10 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd
Spencer Bridge canoe launch · Little Manistee River · 10 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd
Harper Lake boat launch · Harper Lake · 7 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd
Ford Lake boat launch · Ford Lake · 6 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd
Indian Bridge canoe launch · Little Manistee River · 6 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd
Skookum - South Bank canoe launch · Pine River · 6 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd

Open the Little Manistee River on the live map →
The Little Manistee 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.
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