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Western Upper Peninsula Fishing Report

Measured · 13 gauges reporting · 3:23 PM EDT on September 28, 2026

The Porcupines, the Ontonagon, the Escanaba and the Keweenaw — the steepest, coldest water in the state.

Right now

Western Upper Peninsula water is running 51–71°F across 13 gauges reporting in the last 6 hours. 12 are in prime shape — East Branch Salmon Trout River at 51°F, Salmon Trout River at 52°F, Gomanche Creek at 53°F, and others below. Escanaba River is the warm end at 71°F. Air holds in the 70s through Thu, and water should hold about where it is.

Every temperature behind the clock on this page is a measurement — USGS water temperature at a real gauge, taken within 6 hours of the reading's own hour. Hours ahead of the last measurement are projected from the hourly air forecast and are labelled as projected. That is also why the lists below are only as long as the gauge network is dense — a river with no gauge on it has nothing measured to report. 1 MI gauges had no reading in the last 6 hours.

Data refreshed nightly, current-hour rendered live — this page carries 24 hours of measured water behind 3:23 PM EDT on September 28, 2026 and 48 ahead of it, and shows the hour you are reading it in.

Streams by condition

The bands are the map's own: the same breaks BirdTrout paints water with, so a stream that is green here is green there.

Hatching right now

The bugs whose peak covers this month in Western UP, with the water temperature each is active in. Peak only — a shoulder month is on the bug's own page.

• Other · Aquatic Worm Oligochaeta · size 10–16 · active 35–70°F
  Segmented worms in the silt, dislodged in quantity every time the river comes up. Not a hatch and not glamorous, but the single most reliable thing to fish in high dirty water in any of these states.
• Terrestrial · Black Ant Formicidae · size 14–20 · active 55–80°F
  Sinks, so fish it in the film or just under. The most reliable summer fly on small, brushy water.
• Mayfly · Blue-Winged Olive Baetis spp. · size 16–22 · active 38–58°F
  Two broods a year, spring and fall, and the worse the weather the better the hatch. Grey, drizzling, 45°F is the day.
• Terrestrial · Caterpillar Lepidoptera larvae · size 8–14 · active 55–75°F
  Tent caterpillars, woolly bears and spongy-moth larvae, all of which fall off overhanging hardwood in quantity. Distinct from the inchworm only in size and in that they sink; a caterpillar that has been in the water a minute is fished under the surface, not on it.
• Terrestrial · Cinnamon Flying Ant Formicidae (alate) · size 16–20 · active 58–78°F
  A humid, still late-summer afternoon puts them on the water by the thousand. Unpredictable, and the best fishing of August when it happens.

Next three days

Air holds in the 70s through Thu, and water should hold about where it is.

Air, not water. Water follows smoothed air with a sensitivity well below one — a spring creek barely feels a hot afternoon and a shallow freestone nearly tracks it — so this table is a direction, and the measurements above are the answer.

What the water is classed as

11,195 classified stream miles in Western UP, by MDNR designated trout stream type. This is the standing classification, not today's temperature — it is what the water is normally, which is the context the readings above sit in.

More water in Western UP

Rivers here with a full BirdTrout page — survey history, access, public land and regulations — whether or not a gauge is reporting on them this hour.

• Abitosse Creek
• Adventure Creek
• Aho Creek
• Ahola Creek
• Aldridge Creek
• Alward Creek
• Amundsan Creek
• Anderson Creek
• Baker Creek
• Baltimore River
• Baraga Creek
• Bark River
• Barnhardt Creek
• Bart Creek
• Bass Creek
• Bear Creek
• Bear Creek
• Beaver Creek

Before you go

Other regions

• Eastern UP
• Northern Lower Peninsula
• Southern Lower Peninsula

Other states

• Wisconsin
• Virginia
• North Carolina
• Minnesota
• Pennsylvania
• Ohio
• New York
• West Virginia

See this water on the map →Every reach coloured by today's water temperature, starting at the coldest reading in this report.