Muskegon River Fishing Report – July 12, 2026 – Newaygo, Michigan

The Muskegon river around the Newaygo, Michigan area is going into full “summer mode” now and will likely stay there for several weeks with hot, sunny days and warmer nights forecasted for the next couple weeks.

Although this will find river temperatures too warm for fishing to the cold water fish such as resident Brown and Rainbow trout, but it’s GOOD for warm water species such as Smallmouth Bass and Northern Pike ! We had been getting both cold and warm water fish up until the onset of July, which was a bonus !

With both fly fishing and light spin tackle, I’ll be pursuing warm water fish through July and into mid August, before switching gears a bit to chase early run Chinook salmon on the Pere Marquette river in late August and early September.

As we get further into July, we’ll see not only the Smallmouth fishing to be good, but also improved Pike fishing. I’ve already had more Pike hooked over the last few weeks, than I did all of last summer, which was by far the oddest one I had seen in decades, but this year is shaping up to have its own set of challenges.

For those who have been on the Muskegon river over the past near 3 months, you’ve seen more of a “tea stain” to the river than in the past. This is due primarily to the fact that the thousands upon thousands of zebra mussels that were present in the river for years, were blown out during the massive flooding of mid April. The Muskegon river has not looked like this in over 30 years…and I love it !

With some real hot weather coming next week, we may see river temperatures climb further into the 70’s than we would like, but we’re all hoping that it’s short lived and returns to manageable temperatures in the near future.

For now,

Jeff