Sheboygan River Lake Run — Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout

Peak run · Chinook salmon as of 1 October 2026

40.7 miles of run water on the Sheboygan River, from Lake Michigan up to Millhome Dam. 4 species run it, on windows curated from WDNR guidance.

Open this river in the app

The run corridor The mouth Millhome 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.

40.7corridor miles
29NHD reaches
4species that run
Lake Michiganthe lake they come from

The Sheboygan is a Wisconsin Lake Michigan river with an unusually long upstream zone: of 40.7 corridor miles across 29 NHD reaches, the stretch above the first holding water runs from river mile 8.79 all the way to the ceiling at 40.7. Millhome Dam closes it, recorded as OpenStreetMap way 891717940. Below that, the pierheads and harbour mouth carry the first 3.22 miles and the lower river 3.22 to 8.79. No state boating access sites are recorded inside the corridor.

The Wisconsin shore runs earlier than the Michigan one. Chinook are Aug–Oct with a peak in early to mid September, ahead of the Michigan shore; coho Sept–Oct, peaking mid to late September; lake-run browns Oct–Nov, a moderate run with and behind the salmon. Steelhead are Oct–May, a fall push that winters in the river and a spring run peaking late March into April. The windows are month-grained.

The questions about this river

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

What runs the Sheboygan 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 Sep Peak run. Stage off the harbour through August and run as the river cools; peak early to mid September, ahead of the Michigan shore.
Coho salmon — Sept–Oct peak Sep Peak run. Behind the chinook and overlapping them; peak mid to late September.
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 peaking late March into April.
Lake-run brown trout — Oct–Nov peak Oct Staging, 1 day out. A moderate run with and behind the salmon; peak October.

The ceiling

Millhome 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 way 891717940, Millhome Dam

The run water, mouth to ceiling

Zone	What it is	River miles
Pier	the pierheads and the harbour mouth	0.0–3.2
Lower	the lower river	3.2–8.8
Upstream	above the first holding water, up to the ceiling	8.8–40.7

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 Sheboygan River on the live map →
The Sheboygan River river page — gauges, temperature and regulations by reach →

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.

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