Muskegon River Fishing Report – March 31, 2026 – Newaygo, Michigan

The “colors of spring” on the Muskegon river…..”double stripe” male steelhead…..and dime bright
“chromer” female steelhead….what GREAT fish !

The Muskegon river is on the front end of its spring steelhead run, which will go well into May this year.

The “winter fish” have spawned and headed back to lake Michigan and new arrivals…a.k.a. “chromers” are coming in now.

With the heavy rains of 2+ weeks ago, the Muskegon river came up a lot and was flowing over 6,000 cfs (normal more for early-mid March would be 2500-3000) and quite dirty for a number of days. It has since begun to drop in level and once that begins, it will clear rapidly as well.

With both fly fishing and steelhead specific conventional equipment rigs, we’re targeting pre-spawn steelhead right now and getting into fish every day. With river temperatures having come up in early March, only to drop quite a bit with our bad weather/high water episode the second week of March, we’re finally on the rise again and should see that continue through the rest of the spring season.

Not to be left out are the resident Brown and Rainbow trout, who will be keying in on loose steelhead eggs to bulk up after a lean couple months in some of the coldest winter weather I’ve seen in 3 decades of full time guiding.

If anyone is looking to do any walk in-wade fishing on their own and have questions on locations, rigging, etc., feel free to call, text or email me. My contact information can be found at the “contact” page of this site.

Good luck and good fishing !

Jeff