BirdTrout
Ford River, Michigan
108 mapped river miles, draining 458 square miles, in the Cedar-Ford subbasin watershed. 1 USGS gauge report water temperature on it, and this page reads it.
50°F and colder is cold, through cold-transitional and cool, to warm above 70°F — the same four bands, breaking at 58, 64 and 70°F, that the app paints. Grey is water nobody has measured.
Water temperature right now
Live from the USGS — every pill above is live, so the numbers you are reading are the latest continuous readings at each gauge. Provisional and unreviewed, as all real-time data is. If that fetch cannot happen — you are offline, or the USGS is down — the pills fall back to the last value we cached, 30 September 2026, 13:43 UTC. None of them, in fact: Hyde is not reporting water temperature — USGS carries no water-temperature series for it at all. That pill carries a modelled temperature where one can be fitted, marked as modelled, and a dash where it cannot — never a stale reading dressed as a current one.
The character of the water
One hundred and eight mapped miles, a median 45.4 feet wide, draining 458.42 square miles at Strahler order 4 in the Cedar-Ford subbasin. Temperature here comes from a gauge rather than a valley class: Ford River near Hyde, at river mile 12.9, covers a 95.0-mile reach with a July mean of 73.4 F, a July range of 15.5 F, and an uncertainty of 1.97 F across six Julys of record from 2019 through 2024. Groundwater input is rated low. The gauge sits at the downstream end of that reach, so the mean describes the warmest water in it and everything upstream runs colder. Regulation covers 38.0 miles as Type 1, open the last Saturday in April through September 30th, and 66.5 miles as Type 4, open year-round; both allow artificial lures and all types of natural bait, creel 5 fish, no more than 3 trout 15" or greater. Seventeen and one tenth of miles are blue ribbon, ending at Henderson.
Thermal classification
Each gauge carries a July mean built from its own daily record — 6 Julys, 2019–2024, measured rather than modelled. A July mean is what decides which of the four bands a stretch of water belongs to, because July is when a trout river either holds or does not.
| Reach | July mean | Band | Groundwater |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Hyde RM 108.0–12.9 |
73.4 °F | warm | low |
Every gauge sits at the bottom of its segment, so each number is the warm end and the water above it runs colder. ±1.97 °F on the fit.
The lake run
The Ford River is a Lake Michigan tributary with 107.3 miles of run corridor on it — salmon, steelhead and lake-run brown trout, on their own calendar and under their own rules. Run timing, species and access on the Ford River →
Questions about this river
- Ford River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Ford River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to the Ford River — access, parking and public land
- Ford River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
Regulations
MDNR trout stream types, as designated. Types on file cover 104.5 of the 108.0 mapped miles; 3.5 miles carry no type in this dataset. Always check the current Michigan Fishing Guide before you fish — this is a copy, and the Guide is the rule.
| Type | Where | Season | Minimum sizes |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Type 1 38.0 mi |
RM 108.0–68.1 | Last Saturday in April–September 30th | Brook trout 7", Brown trout 8", Rainbow trout / steelhead 10", Lake trout 10", Chinook salmon 10", Coho salmon 10", Pink salmon 10", Atlantic salmon 10" |
|
Type 4 66.5 mi |
RM 68.1–0.0 | January 1st–December 31st | Brook trout 7", Brown trout 10", Rainbow trout / steelhead 10", Lake trout 10", Chinook salmon 10", Coho salmon 10", Pink salmon 10", Atlantic salmon 10" |
Creel across all types: 5 fish, with no more than 3 trout 15“ or greater. Zero (0) Arctic Grayling. Tackle: Artificial lures and all types of natural bait may be used.
Blue Ribbon. Ford River (BR 4), 17.1 mapped miles. MDNR's limits, verbatim — upstream: T43N, R30W, Sec 15; downstream: Henderson.
Fishable reaches
River miles are measured above the mouth, along the mapped mainstem. The reach breaks are the gauges, which is also how the temperature model divides the river.
| Reach | Miles | July mean | Access on it |
|---|---|---|---|
|
RM 108.0–12.9 down to Hyde |
95.0 | 73.4 °F | — |
0 mapped access sites on the mainstem: 0 walk-in, 0 boat or canoe launches.
USGS gauges
Every gauge on the mainstem, upstream first. Links go to the USGS monitoring-location page for the site.
-
Ford River near Hyde
— 04059500 · RM 12.9
182 July days of record across 6 Julys (2019–2024) · 39 cfs at last read
Public land on the river
9 units of public or open-access land touch this river, 158,207 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Crystal Falls Management Unit | Michigan DNR | 67,281 |
| Escanaba Management Unit | Michigan DNR | 56,723 |
| Escanaba River State Forest - Escanaba Unit | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | 21,307 |
| Copper Country State Forest - Crystal Falls Unit | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | 5,576 |
| Crystal Falls State Forest Area | State Dept. of Natural Resources | 4,712 |
| Escanaba River State Forest - Gwinn Unit (South) | Michigan Department of Natural Resources | 2,242 |
| North Dickinson School Forest | Sagola Township Schools | 359 |
| Portage Marsh State Wildilfe Management Area | State Dept. of Natural Resources | 5 |
| Islands | Michigan DNR | 1 |
Species
No species records for this water in the files this site reads.
Historical July mean
The measured record behind every temperature band on this page: the mean of the daily means for July, at each gauge, over the years USGS has one.
| Gauge | July mean | July range | Julys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyde | 73.4 °F | 15.5 °F | 6 |
Hatches on this water
42 insects are recorded from the Upper Peninsula, which is the region this river sits in. That is a claim about the region and not a survey of this stream: nobody has recorded which of them has been caught here. Open the river in the app and the hatch panel will narrow it to the ones whose temperature window today's reading is inside.
| Insect | Peak | Water | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fish Eggs Other |
October–January and April | 33–60°F | #10–16 |
| Little Black Stonefly Allocapnia / Capnia spp. |
January–April | 34–46°F | #16–18 |
| Little Brown Stonefly Taeniopteryx / Strophopteryx spp. |
February–April | 38–50°F | #12–16 |
| Blue-Winged Olive Baetis spp. |
March–May and September–November | 38–58°F | #16–22 |
| Blackfly Simulium spp. |
April–June | 40–65°F | #18–22 |
| Cranefly Tipula spp. |
April–June and September–October | 40–65°F | #6–10 |
| Grannom Brachycentrus spp. |
April–May | 48–58°F | #14–16 |
| Green Rock Worm / Green Weenie Rhyacophila spp. |
April–June and September–October | 45–68°F | #10–14 |
| Hendrickson Ephemerella subvaria |
April–May | 45–58°F | #12–14 |
| Alderfly Sialis spp. |
May–June | 52–66°F | #10–14 |
| Caterpillar Lepidoptera larvae |
May–September | 55–75°F | #8–14 |
| Crayfish Orconectes spp. |
May–October | 55–78°F | #4–8 |
| Giant Black Stonefly (Salmonfly) Pteronarcys dorsata |
May–June | 50–62°F | #4–6 |
| Green Sedge Rhyacophila spp. |
May–August | 48–64°F | #12–16 |
And 28 more — the year-round records, mostly: midges, scuds and sculpins, which are in the water every day and are therefore never the news.
Tributaries and watershed
12 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- North Branch Ford River 35.1 mi · RM 68.2
- Tenmile Creek 30.2 mi · RM 11.0
- West Branch Ford River 14.5 mi · RM 39.2
- Twomile Creek 12.8 mi · RM 96.7
- Camp Creek 7.5 mi · RM 20.7
- Twentyfour Mile Creek 6.3 mi · RM 23.6
- Stafford Creek 6.2 mi · RM 79.7
- Hayes Creek 5.6 mi · RM 80.3
- Elie Creek 4.5 mi · RM 57.0
- Turner Creek 3.8 mi · RM 90.4
- Tom Doe Creek 3.5 mi · RM 60.6
- Fivemile Creek 2.7 mi · RM 6.3
Ford River sits in HUC 8 04030109, the Cedar-Ford subbasin, and drains 458 square miles, Strahler order 4 at the mouth. 57 NHD reaches carry the name for 107.8 miles in total.
Other water nearby
The closest 6 rivers on this site, straight-line from the middle of this one — not drive time.