Rogue River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

First runners · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

5.6 miles of run water on the Rogue River, from Lake Michigan up to Rockford Dam. 4 species run it, on windows curated from MDNR guidance.

Open this river in the app

The run corridor The mouth Rockford 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.

5.6corridor miles
10NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The Rogue is the shortest kind of Lake Michigan run corridor: 5.6 miles across 10 NHD reaches, ceiling to mouth. Rockford Dam closes it, recorded as an anadromous ceiling in the site's own rivers.json and as an OpenStreetMap way of that name. There is no pier zone — the corridor begins at the river mouth and holds it to river mile 2.18, lower river carries to 4.08, and the upstream zone above the first holding water runs 4.03 to 5.64. One state boating access site is recorded inside it, at the Rogue River Mouth.

The windows are month-grained agency guidance. Steelhead are Oct–May, two runs on one calendar — a fall push that winters in the river and a spring peak in March and April. Chinook are Aug–Oct, peaking October; coho Sept–Nov, overlapping the chinook and holding later; lake-run browns Sept–Nov with an October peak.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the Rogue 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

Rockford 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.

Rockford Dam, carried as the anadromous ceiling on our own river map and as OpenStreetMap way 'Rockford Dam'

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Mouth	the river mouth	0.0–2.2
Lower	the lower river	2.2–4.1
Upstream	above the first holding water, up to the ceiling	4.0–5.6

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.

Rogue River Mouth boat launch · Grand River · 37 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Dnr-Prd

Open the Rogue 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