Manistique River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

First runners · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

1.5 miles of run water on the Manistique River, from Lake Michigan up to Manistique Papers Dam. 4 species run it, on windows curated from MDNR guidance.

Open this river in the app

The run corridor The mouth Manistique Papers 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 1 October 2026, north up, and it is a map of the river rather than of the lake it runs from.

1.5corridor miles
8NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The Manistique gives up one of the shortest corridors on this map: 1.5 miles and 8 NHD reaches between Lake Michigan and the Manistique Papers Dam, recorded as USACE NID MI00377, source agency Michigan. There is no lower-river zone at all — the pierheads and harbour mouth take river mile 0.0 to 0.76 and the river mouth 0.74 to 1.46, and that is the whole of it. Everything that runs here runs in harbour and mouth water.

Four species are recorded, and the windows are month-grained. Chinook are August through October, peaking in October. Coho are September through November, peaking October into November. Lake-run brown trout are September through November with an October peak, running with the salmon and staying after them. Steelhead hold the longest calendar, October through May, two runs on one line — a fall push from October that winters in the river and a spring run peaking March through April. No state boating access sites fall inside the corridor.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the Manistique 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.

The ceiling

Manistique Papers 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.

USACE NID MI00377 'Manistique Papers Dam', River or Stream Name 'Manistique River', Source Agency Michigan

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Mouth	the river mouth	0.0–0.5
Lower	the lower river	0.5–1.2
Upstream	above the first holding water, up to the ceiling	1.2–1.5

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 Manistique River on the live map →

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.
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.

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