The Menominee River






This is one of my home rivers and this last season its the one I put the most time on. About an hour north of Green Bay, WI, it cuts a course along the boarders of Wisconsin and the U.P. of Michigan. It is, I think the largest of Wisconsins steelhead rivers with a flow of 2000-2500 CFS in the fall an daround 3000 in the spring.

The section of river in which you can fish steelhead is pretty short, maybe two mile long, and most of this is not all that fishy, but the runs that are, are. There are only limited runs on the river and it gets crowed some times.


The river receives planting of steelhead and seeforlen brown tout from both the Michigan and Wisconsin DNRs. This can lead to some really great fishing, although I have had some very depressing years on the Menominee.
We only started fishing two handed rods on the Menominee River in 2000 and didn't really learn the short rivers potentially until 2001. We have some really good and really shitty years since.

As far as steelhead go, the rivers south of Green Bay seem to consistently fish better when the water conditions are right. So it i9s usually a better better to go south when the rivers are in, but the runs on the menominee are big and deep compared to most of the runs in the state and the Menominee is the only river in the state where I have been taken into my backing by a steelhead, and that has happened many times.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

enjoyed your articles on the Menominee and the one on the Oconto. Grew up fishing the menominee mostly for smallies and eyes. Got back into fly fishing this last year. Can't wait to trying my luck for steel head and browns on both rivers this year. Just moved to abrams and can't wait to try the oconto. Maybe see you out there.

Unknown said...

Really appreciate the article. Was never too sure about the fishing in the menominee for trout and steelhead. Really pumped to get down there this year.