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St. Louis River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout
Peak run · Coho salmon as of 1 October 2026
16.5 miles of run water on the Saint Louis River, from Lake Superior up to Fond Du Lac. 7 species run it, on windows curated from Minnesota DNR guidance.
- 16.5corridor miles
- 21NHD reaches
- 7species that run
- Lake Superiorthe lake they come from
The questions about this river
One page each, answered from the same records as this one.
What runs the Saint Louis 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.
- Coho salmon — Sept–Oct peak Sep–Oct Peak run. Thin beside the steelhead and worth knowing about, mostly in the lower reaches and the stream mouths; peak late September into October.
- Chinook salmon — Sept–Oct peak Sep Peak run. Minnesota's only chinook worth naming a window for. MN DNR's chinook programme is the French River, and the fish that return do so to the lower river and the estuary rather than up the shore; peak mid to late September. Thin beside the steelhead, and nothing like a Lake Michigan run.
- Lake-run brown trout — Sept–Nov peak Oct45–58°F First runners. Lake Superior brown trout, running with and behind the autumn steelhead; peak October. Strongest in the Duluth-area streams, where MN DNR's stocking has been, and occasional up the shore.
- Pink salmon — Aug–Sept peak Sep Tail-off. Naturalised in Superior since the 1956 Thunder Bay escape and heaviest in odd-numbered years, when small pinks fill the lower pools of nearly every North Shore stream; peak early September.
- Lake-run brook trout — Sept–Oct 45–55°F Tail-off. Coaster brook trout, staging at and just inside the stream mouths in early autumn. Superior's own fish, at a fraction of their historical numbers on this shore, and under restrictive North Shore regulations — the point of this entry is that they are there, not that you should go and catch one. Read the Minnesota regulations before you keep anything.
- Steelhead — Mar–May peak Apr–Oct42–55°F Off-season. What this coast is fished for, and it is a spring run first — the fish move as the ice goes out and the snowmelt comes off, peaking late April into early May, later on the far North Shore than at Duluth. Wild steelhead on the North Shore tributaries are catch-and-release; the harvestable rainbow in the same water is MN DNR's stocked Kamloops strain, and telling them apart is the reader's job before a fish goes in a cooler. A thinner autumn push follows the salmon in September and October.
- Lake sturgeon — Apr–June peak May–Dec55–64°F Off-season. Spawns below the Fond du Lac Dam, which is as far up the St. Louis as the fish can get. Peak is May and the trigger is temperature rather than the date — the run starts around 55°F and is finished above about 64°F. This is a restoration: the estuary's sturgeon were gone by about 1900 and the fish here are the Fond du Lac Band's and MN DNR's reintroduction, decades of it. Sturgeon fishing on the St. Louis is closed or catch-and-release depending on the reach and the date — read the Minnesota regulations, and do not lift one out of the water.
The ceiling
Fond Du Lac 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 MN00603 'Fond Du Lac', River or Stream Name 'St Louis River', Source Agency Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
The run water, mouth to ceiling
| Zone | What it is | River miles |
|---|---|---|
| Pier | the pierheads and the harbour mouth | 0.0–1.4 |
| Mouth | the river mouth | 1.4–3.7 |
| Lower | the lower river | 3.7–8.0 |
| Upstream | above the first holding water, up to the ceiling | 8.0–16.5 |
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 St. Louis 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. Minnesota's regulation summary is here, and the state's own guide is the regulation.
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 sturgeon is a Michigan state-threatened species. Possession is closed on this water and the fishery is catch-and-release. The MDNR rehabilitation strategy and the Fishing Guide are the rules; this page is not.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Pink salmon Light spinning tackle is enough — a 6'6"–7' rod and 6–10 lb line. Small pink and orange spinners, spoons and flies.
- Lake-run brook trout Catch and release, and tackle chosen to make that survivable: barbless hooks, a net that keeps the fish in the water, and heavy enough line to land it fast rather than play it out.
- 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 sturgeon Catch and release only, and this is the one species on this surface where the tackle note is a handling note. Do not lift a sturgeon out of the water, do not hold it vertically, and support it fully if it must be moved.
Nearby run rivers
The next corridors up and down this shore, nearest first.
- Amnicon RiverLake Superior · 42.6 corridor miles →
- Lester RiverLake Superior · 0.6 corridor miles →
- Nemadji RiverLake Superior · 70.2 corridor miles →
- French RiverLake Superior · 12.6 corridor miles →
- Sucker RiverLake Superior · 17.9 corridor miles →
- Knife RiverLake Superior · 22.4 corridor miles →