Chris Izworski, reporting from Michigan on the current state of the Menominee River this Monday morning in early June. The river is running at 2,580 cubic feet per second, gauge height 9.6 feet at the USGS station. That is a comfortable flow for a river of this size, well within the range where wade fishermen can work the margins and read the structure without being pushed out. The clarity is good. The afternoon sun is forecast to reach 75 degrees under full sky, dropping to 45 tonight with clear conditions continuing into Tuesday. The water temperature has climbed into the low sixties. We are at the threshold where the sulphurs begin to thin and the river starts to shift toward its mid-summer character.
The Window This Week
The Menominee is not a classic trout stream in the sense of the Au Sable or the Manistee. It is a border river, wide and slow in places, swift and boulder-strewn in others, holding smallmouth bass and walleye in the deeper runs and browns in the cooler tributaries and spring seeps along the main stem. The trout fishing here is selective. You are not looking for long glides of uniform gravel. You are looking for structure: boulders that create seams, cold water inputs, narrow slots where the current gathers and accelerates. The fish are there, but they are not everywhere. This is a river that rewards knowledge of place over broad coverage. If you do not know where the trout hold, you will spend most of your time casting to water that holds none.
The hatches are beginning to turn. Sulphurs were strong through the last two weeks of May, mostly Ephemerella invaria, size 16, coming off in the late afternoon between six and eight o’clock. That emergence is waning now. You will still see some sporadic spinners in the evening, but the dense blanket hatches are behind us. What is coming next, if the warm nights continue, are brown drakes. These are Ephemera simulans, size 10, large yellow-bodied mayflies that emerge after dark and bring the big browns up in the slower pools and eddies. The drakes have not started yet, but they are close. Watch the forecast. If the overnight lows stay above 50 degrees for three or four consecutive nights, the drakes will begin.
What Is Emerging Now
At present, the most consistent surface activity is caddis. There are several species active in early June, mostly tan and olive, sizes 14 and 16. They come off sporadically through the afternoon and into dusk. The fish are not selective to them the way they are to sulphurs, but they will take a well-placed Elk Hair Caddis or a Hemingway Caddis in the pocket water and along the seams. The caddis fishing is workmanlike. You are not waiting for a hatch window. You are prospecting structure, dropping the fly tight to boulders and into the slack water behind ledges.
There are also Isonychia nymphs in the faster water. These are large mayflies, size 12, dark mahogany bodies, that crawl out on rocks to emerge rather than hatching on the surface. The nymphs are active now, and a weighted Isonychia or a Hare’s Ear fished deep along the boulder runs will produce fish. The trout here are opportunistic. They are not locked into a single food form the way they can be on smaller rivers during a dense hatch. You are fishing a mixed menu, and the presentation matters more than the exact pattern.
Where to Go
Access is limited on the Menominee. Much of the river flows through private land or difficult terrain. The best public water is at Piers Gorge, downstream from Norway, where the river drops through a series of rapids and pools. This is pocket water fishing, technical and physical. You are wading carefully, casting short, working the cushions and seams. The fish here are not large by Upper Peninsula standards, but they are wild and they fight hard in the current. Further upstream, near Koss, there are slower stretches that hold both trout and smallmouth. The distinction between the two fisheries blurs here. You may hook a brown on one cast and a bass on the next. If you are a purist, this is not your river. If you are willing to take what the water gives you, the Menominee offers something that few other Michigan rivers do: a sense of wildness and scale, a border river that does not conform to the typical patterns.
The Practical Read
The flow is stable and the clarity is good. The afternoon sun will warm the shallows, so focus your effort on the deeper runs and the shaded water near the banks. If you are fishing dries, wait until the sun drops below the treeline. The best window will be from seven o’clock until dark. If the brown drakes begin, you will know it. The rises are violent and the fish are reckless. Use a size 10 Extended Body Drake or a Sparkle Dun in yellow. Do not overwork the water. Make your cast, let the fly drift, and wait. The river will tell you when it is ready.
For live USGS data, hourly hatch updates, and the full reporting network across Michigan, visit michigantroutreport.com.