White River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

Peak run · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

36.6 miles of run water on the White River, from Lake Michigan up to Hesperia Dam. 4 species run it, on windows curated from MDNR guidance.

Open this river in the app

The run corridor The mouth Hesperia Dam — the run stops here 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.

36.6corridor miles
112NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The White River carries the longest corridor and the finest mapping of this group — 36.6 miles over 112 NHD reaches, from Lake Michigan to the Hesperia Dam, recorded as USACE NID MI00678 'Hesperia Dam', Village of Hesperia. The pierheads and harbour mouth run 0.0 to 1.63, the river mouth to 6.13, the lower river from 6.09 to 29.77, and the upstream water above the first holding water from 29.77 to the ceiling at 36.62. Two state boating access sites sit inside it, Montague Roesler Park and Sengs.

Every window here carries the estimator's dates rather than months, and the estimator uses the same set on all sixteen rivers it models. Lake-run brown trout run 20 Oct – 31 Jan, peaking 1 Nov – 15 Jan and entering at 45–58°F — the longest window on the river and the one that carries into winter. Chinook run 15 Aug – 31 Oct, coho 1 Sep – 30 Nov, and steelhead 1 Oct – 31 Dec with a peak of 15 Oct – 15 Dec.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the White 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.
Lake-run brown trout — 20 Oct – 31 Jan peak 1 Nov – 15 Jan45–58°F Off-season. The lake-run ecotype anglers call a coaster brown, though the word properly belongs to Lake Superior; a spring feeding push in May and the spawning run behind the salmon, peak October.

The ceiling

Hesperia 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 MI00678 'Hesperia Dam', Village of Hesperia, River or Stream Name 'White River'

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Pier	the pierheads and the harbour mouth	0.0–1.6
Mouth	the river mouth	1.6–6.1
Lower	the lower river	6.1–29.8
Upstream	above the first holding water, up to the ceiling	29.8–36.6

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.

Montague Roesler Park boat launch · White Lake · 49 parking spaces · restroom · fee · Municipal
Sengs canoe launch · White River - South Branch · 5 parking spaces · fee · Dnr-Prd

Open the White 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.
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