Iron River (Bayfield County) Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

Peak run · Coho salmon as of 1 October 2026

23.0 miles of run water on the Iron River, from Lake Superior up to Iron River Light and Power Company WP182 Dam. 4 species run it, on windows curated from WDNR guidance.

Open this river in the app

The run corridor The mouth Iron River Light and Power Company WP182 Dam — the run stops here

The colour is this river's run stage today, read off WDNR 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.

23.0corridor miles
23NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Superiorthe lake they come from

The Iron River of Bayfield County runs 23.0 miles of corridor to Lake Superior across only 23 NHD reaches, and unlike its neighbours it has a ceiling: the Iron River Light and Power Company WP182 Dam, recorded as OpenStreetMap node 353897666. There is no separate mouth zone here. The pierheads and harbour mouth run to river mile 2.04, the lower river from there to 9.07, and everything from 9.07 up to 23.05 is above the first holding water and below the dam.

Steelhead carry the calendar — September through May, with a fall push into November and the spring run peaking April into early May as the ice goes out. Coho are thin beside them and peak in late September. Lake-run browns run with the autumn steelhead, peaking October. Coasters, the lake-run brook trout of this shore, move into the stream mouths in early autumn under heavy restriction; the WDNR regulations are the rules. These windows are month-grained.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the Iron 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 Peak run. Thin beside the steelhead and worth knowing about; peak late September.
Steelhead — Sept–May peak Apr–May First runners. What this coast is fished for. A fall push from September into November and the spring run, peaking April into early May as the ice goes out.
Lake-run brown trout — Sept–Nov peak Oct First runners. Runs with the autumn steelhead; peak October.
Lake-run brook trout — Sept–Oct Tail-off. Coasters, running the stream mouths in early autumn. Superior's own fish and heavily restricted — check the WDNR regulations before keeping one.

The ceiling

Iron River Light and Power Company WP182 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.

OpenStreetMap node 353897666, Iron River Light and Power Company WP182 Dam

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Pier	the pierheads and the harbour mouth	0.0–2.0
Lower	the lower river	2.0–9.1
Upstream	above the first holding water, up to the ceiling	9.1–23.1

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

The boating access record this site holds is MDNR's and covers Michigan only, so there is no access list here rather than a list of the wrong state's ramps. The WDNR publishes Wisconsin's.

Open the Iron River (Bayfield County) 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. Wisconsin'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.

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.
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.
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.

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