USGS Site: 04119400 • Grand River near Eastmanville • View full data ↗
Flow is from the Eastmanville gauge; water temperature comes from the Grand Rapids gauge 25 miles upstream. Two different places on a big river, and both are labelled where they appear.
Public Access Points
Named Access Sites
Sixth Street Dam and Fish Ladder ParkAnn StreetFulton StreetJenisonGrand Haven
Open all year below the Sixth Street Dam — and the mainstem is not on DNR's reduced-rainbow list, though two of its tributaries are.
Sixth Street Dam → Lake Michigan
Open all year. No river-specific rainbow trout limit applies to the Grand mainstem.
The tributaries, which are a different matter
The Rogue (Rockford Dam down to the Grand) and Prairie Creek were both added to DNR's 1 April 2024 list. On the Rogue the Type 4 limit still applies with up to five rainbow trout, no more than three of 15 inches or greater, and no more than one of 20 inches or greater.
Run status is rebuilt twice a day from the live gauge and the DNR's own run windows. The windows are typical timing, not a forecast — what actually moves fish is water temperature and a rise, and the run tracker carries both for every river at once.
Kings Chinook Salmon
Peak
Typical: Sep 1 – Nov 1, peak Sep 22 – Oct 12
The Grand runs late. Big, warm, slow water and a long way to travel.
Coho Coho Salmon
Peak
Typical: Sep 15 – Nov 17, peak Oct 3 – Oct 30
The Grand’s coho run is the best known in southern Michigan.
Steelhead Steelhead
First fish
Typical: Sep 28 – Apr 18, peak Oct 28 – Dec 23
Upstream limit
Sixth Street Dam, Grand Rapids Forty miles of river from Lake Michigan to the dam, and the fish ladder at Sixth Street is the most-watched salmon spectacle in the state.
Access
Sixth Street Dam and Fish Ladder Park, Ann Street, Fulton Street, Jenison, Grand Haven. Wade at the dam; the rest is a boat river.
Crowding
Sixth Street is urban fishing with an audience — spectators on the walkway, anglers shoulder to shoulder. It is a spectacle as much as a fishery.
Regulations
Snagging enforcement at Sixth Street is heavy and public. Know the rules before you cast.
What to throw
Big water. Sink tips and weight, or fish the dam pool with the crowd.
Michigan's longest river runs 260 miles to Lake Michigan at Grand Haven, and its last forty carry one of the strangest fisheries in the state: a salmon run that ends in the middle of a city. The fish ladder at the Sixth Street Dam in downtown Grand Rapids puts chinook, coho and steelhead a few feet from a public walkway, and every autumn spectators who have never held a rod stand and watch them climb it. The Grand runs late — big, warm, slow water and a long way to travel from the lake — so it is often still worth fishing when the northern rivers have finished.
Did you know
The Rogue, a Grand tributary, is one of only two Michigan rivers where DNR's 2024 rainbow-trout rule takes the "no more than one over 20 inches" form. The Grand mainstem itself is not on the list at all.