Muskegon River Fishing Report – June 15, 2026 – Newaygo, Michigan

The Muskegon river is approaching the transition phase of mid summer, when resident Brown and Rainbow trout are given a break and we focus on Smallmouth bass and Northern pike !

The Muskegon river is coming back into shape after an unprecedented run of crazy weather and water conditions earlier in the spring. As the river reached near all time record high levels in April, much of the structure throughout the entire river system from Croton dam to Muskegon lake changed.

One thing that has not “changed” is the tea like stain or tint to the water. The Muskegon river has not been like this in over 30 years, much like when I first started guiding. One major reason is the flushing out of millions of zebra mussels during the flood. These mini water filtration mussels are not in the river system below Croton dam like they had been for MANY years, so the water has a different color to it. I love it, we’ll see how long this lasts

The trout fishing was going pretty good for a number of weeks, with dry fly activity being as good as I’ve seen over a 10 day-2 week period that found some really nice trout coming to the surface for dry flies. This has changed a bit with recent runs of really hot weather, but the rains from the last couple days and cooler nights, has brought river temperatures down a little and we may have another round of good trout fishing the next week+.

When the time comes to make the change from trout to bass and pike, we’ll be fishing them with both fly fishing and conventional equipment, using both topwater and subsurface flies and lures…..nothing like the explosion of a Smallmouth on topwater !

Current river levels are a bit below average at 1,700 cfs and river temperatures are in the 65-66 degree range below Croton dam.