Muskegon River Fishing Report – Newaygo, Michigan – July 27, 2026

The Muskegon river has been fishing well recently for Smallmouth Bass and we’re getting them with various fly fishing and conventional equipment setups.

Fishing both topwater poppers, waking lures/flies and “glide” baits, along with subsurface offerings of various attractor, baitfish, crayfish and a few other flies and lures, we’ve had pretty consistent “action” over the last month+

The river has gone through a number of “seasons, within a season”, with a run of extremely hot weather and dropping river levels, found river temperatures in the mid 70’s for a number of days in early July. The arrival of cooler weather over the last week has brought some relief, with river temperatures coming down to the upper 60’s for a number of days.

With next to no rain over the last near month, we may be slipping into a late summer mini-drought, but hoping this doesn’t last too long as we get into August. The current long range forecast is showing highs in the upper 70’s and low 80’s, with overnight lows in the mid to upper 60’s. It won’t be long before we’re looking at the end of August and the arrival of Chinook salmon in several Midwest rivers and based on the reports from my lake Michigan charter boat captain friends, we’re looking at pretty good salmon numbers and should see a good fall run of those and fall steelhead as well.