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What fish run in the Ontonagon River?

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

6 species run the Ontonagon River out of Lake Superior — coho salmon, steelhead, lake-run brown trout, pink salmon, lake-run brook trout and lake trout. The corridor is 23.7 miles of run water over 42 NHD reaches, from the harbour mouth up to the end of the mainstem. As of 30 September 2026, coho salmon is at peak run, steelhead is at first runners and lake-run brown trout is at first runners. Lake-run brook trout is on this water under protection rather than as a fishery — read the regulations page before making a cast at one.

23.7 corridor miles · Lake Superior · 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.

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–Oct · peak Sep–Oct
Size
Four to twelve pounds.
Latin
Oncorhynchus kisutch
Stage as of 30 September 2026
Peak run

Coho salmon 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
Sept–May · peak Apr–May
Size
Five to twelve pounds, and bigger on the Manistee-type rivers.
Latin
Oncorhynchus mykiss
Stage as of 30 September 2026
First runners

Steelhead 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.
Entry temperature
45–58 °F
Latin
Salmo trutta
Stage as of 30 September 2026
First runners

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

Pink salmon — humpy

The smallest salmon in these rivers, with large oval spots on the tail and, on a ripe male, the hump the other name comes from. Naturalised in Lake Superior since the 1956 Thunder Bay escape and heaviest in odd-numbered years — a two-year fish, so the run has a rhythm the others do not.

Window on this river
Aug–Sept · peak Sep
Size
One to four pounds.
Latin
Oncorhynchus gorbuscha
Stage as of 30 September 2026
Tail-off

Pink salmon in Michigan — every river with a run →

Lake-run brook trout — lake-run brook trout

A brook trout off the lake: silvered flanks over the vermiculation, with the white-edged fins that give the species away whatever the colour of the fish. A Lake Superior fish and a restoration story rather than a fishery. Enters after ice-out and again to stage in autumn.

Window on this river
Sept–Oct
Size
Twelve to twenty inches, and a fish over four pounds is a rare one.
Entry temperature
45–55 °F
Latin
Salvelinus fontinalis
Stage as of 30 September 2026
Tail-off

Coasters are a managed restoration fishery under special catch-and-release regulations on much of this shore, and the rules differ river by river. Read the state guide for the water you are on.

Lake-run brook trout 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 Ontonagon River

Nearby run rivers

The rest of the run

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