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Home › Waters › Michigan › Manistee River
River · Northern Michigan · Michigan

Manistee River Fishing Guides

Michigan trout and steelhead water with two personalities: the cold upper river above Hodenpyl and the big tailwater below Tippy Dam that draws salmon and steelhead crowds.

A dark forest stream running fast over stone

Map of the Manistee River

35 numbered points: 15 access points, 10 campsites, 1 bait & fly shop, 3 outfitters, 1 bridge, 2 parks and conservation areas, 1 regulation section limit, 1 hazard, 1 USGS gauge. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Sep 25, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (15)
  • Campsite (10)
  • Bait, tackle & fly shop (1)
  • Outfitter / canoe rental (3)
  • Bridge crossing (1)
  • Park / conservation area (2)
  • Regulation section limit (1)
  • Dam / hazard (1)
  • USGS gauge (1)
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Points are curated from OpenStreetMap and state agency sources; confirm access and hours before you go.

Print it. Bag it. Bring it.Phones die, screens crack, and most of this water has no signal. Print this map, fold it into a zip-top bag or dry bag with your license, and you have a backup your electronics can’t give you. Every marker is numbered so you can say exactly where you are.

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All 35 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1Goose Creek State Forest Campground
Michigan DNR state forest campground		Campsite44.76200, -84.83844Uppermost state forest campground on the mapped river, at the Goose Creek mouth.
2Upper Manistee River State Forest Campground
Michigan DNR state forest campground		Campsite44.74764, -84.83650State forest campground on the upper river above the M-72 corridor.
3Shel-Haven Tube, Kayak and Canoe Rental
Livery and shuttle · upper river		Outfitter / canoe rental44.69317, -84.84665Livery at the Manistee River Bridge campground, serving the upper floats.
4Manistee River Bridge State Forest Campground
Michigan DNR state forest campground		Campsite44.69403, -84.84688State forest campground at the Manistee River Bridge crossing.
5Special Regulation Section - downstream limit at CCC Bridge
Designated special-regulation reach		Regulation section limit44.61468, -84.99143Downstream end of the special-regulation water, which the source words as running from Michigan #72 down to the CCC Bridge. The upstream limit at M-72 is not a named feature in OSM and is unmarked. This sheet marks the boundary only.
6CCC Bridge State Forest Campground
Michigan DNR state forest campground		Campsite44.61338, -84.99203State forest campground at the CCC Bridge, the busiest put-in on the upper river.
7High Banks
River access		Access / boat ramp44.54064, -85.14175Access on the high-banks reach below the CCC Bridge.
8Smithville Landing
Private campground and livery		Campsite44.52494, -85.17900Campground and canoe livery on the river at Smithville.
9Smithville Boat Ramp
Boat ramp · Smithville		Access / boat ramp44.52326, -85.17948Ramp at Smithville. A second launch sits about 500 m upstream and is not shown separately.
10Rainbow Jim Bridge Boat Ramp
Boat ramp at the Coster Road crossing		Access / boat ramp44.52734, -85.27552Ramp at the Rainbow Jim bridge; a park polygon tags the same site.
11Lucas Road Boat Launch
Michigan DNR boating access site		Access / boat ramp44.50551, -85.31069Launch at the Missaukee Bridge crossing on Lucas Road, which sits 30 m away.
12Chippewa Landing
Livery and campground		Outfitter / canoe rental44.48774, -85.40328Long-standing livery and campground on the middle river; OSM carries it three times, as a campsite, a way and a boat rental.
13US-131 Roadside Park Boat Ramp
Boat ramp at the US-131 roadside park		Access / boat ramp44.48538, -85.40467Ramp at the US-131 crossing; the roadside park and the highway bridge are at the same spot.
14Old US-131 State Forest Campground
Michigan DNR state forest campground		Campsite44.49185, -85.42146State forest campground on the old US-131 alignment.
15Baxter Bridge State Forest Campground
Michigan DNR state forest campground		Campsite44.49329, -85.52378State forest campground at the Baxter Bridge crossing.
16Baxter Bridge Boat Ramp
Boat ramp at Baxter Bridge		Access / boat ramp44.49284, -85.52793Ramp at Baxter Bridge, beside the state forest campground.
17Harvey Bridge River Access
Michigan DNR access		Access / boat ramp44.43915, -85.64216Access at the Harvey Bridge crossing, which sits 20 m away and is not shown separately.
18Kohn Family Nature Preserve
Land trust preserve		Park / conservation area44.43428, -85.67686Riverside preserve above the Mesick gauge.
19USGS 04124000 - Manistee River near Sherman
Real-time stage and discharge		USGS gauge44.43639, -85.69868The gauge float levels on this river are read from, above Hodenpyl Dam Pond.
20Wilderness Canoe Trips
Livery and shuttle · Mesick		Outfitter / canoe rental44.43563, -85.69983Livery at the M-37 crossing, the usual shuttle for the middle river.
21Red Bridge River Access Site
River access at the North Coates Highway crossing		Access / boat ramp44.28379, -85.86205Access at Red Bridge, at the head of the Tippy reach; tagged as a campsite in OSM, and a campground shares the name.
22Tippy Dam
Consumers Energy hydro dam		Dam / hazard44.25961, -85.93893The lower of the river's two big dams. The tailwater below it is the best-known steelhead and salmon water on the river; do not approach the dam from above.
23Upper Tippy Dam Boat Ramp
Boat ramp above the dam		Access / boat ramp44.26052, -85.93864Ramp on the impoundment side of Tippy Dam.
24Lower Tippy Dam Boat Ramp
Boat ramp below the dam		Access / boat ramp44.25986, -85.94323Ramp in the tailwater below Tippy Dam and the standard put-in for that reach.
25Tippy Dam State Recreation Area
Michigan DNR state recreation area		Park / conservation area44.26324, -85.93715State recreation area around the dam and its tailwater, with the walk-in bank access.
26Sawdust Hole River Access
U.S. Forest Service river access		Access / boat ramp44.26864, -85.95146Forest Service access in the tailwater below Tippy Dam. Tagged as a campsite in OSM; it is an access.
27High Bridge Access Site
River access at High Bridge		Access / boat ramp44.26776, -86.01602Access at the High Bridge crossing on the lower river.
28Blacksmith Bayou Campground
National forest campground		Campsite44.26170, -86.03627Forest Service campground and launch at Blacksmith Bayou.
29Andy's Tackle Box
Tackle shop		Bait, tackle & fly shop44.30397, -86.01001Tackle shop serving the Tippy tailwater and the lower river, 3.7 km north of the water.
30Bear Creek River Access
River access at the Bear Creek mouth		Access / boat ramp44.29138, -86.11435Access on the lower river where Bear Creek comes in.
31Rainbow Bend
River access		Access / boat ramp44.29204, -86.14872Access on the lower river below Bear Creek.
32Matson's Big Manistee River Campground
Private campground		Campsite44.28357, -86.16073Riverside campground on the lower river.
33Coho Bend Campground
Private campground		Campsite44.27127, -86.20081Riverside campground on the lowest free-flowing reach.
34Caberfae Highway
M-55 crossing above Manistee Lake		Bridge crossing44.26422, -86.29543Last road crossing above Manistee Lake and the harbour.
351st Street Boat Launch
City of Manistee boat launch		Access / boat ramp44.24733, -86.33992Lowest launch on the river, at the harbour in Manistee.

Guides on the Manistee River

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

Order on this page: premium and outfitter plans first (labelled Premium placement), then claimed free profiles, then unclaimed — one published price, no bidding for position. How placement works

About the Manistee River

The Manistee is two rivers with one name. Above Hodenpyl Dam it is a classic northern Michigan trout stream, sand-bottomed and spring-fed, running through jack pine and cedar with wild browns, stocked rainbows and brook trout in the feeder creeks. Below Tippy Dam it is a big, powerful tailwater and one of the most productive salmon and steelhead fisheries in the Great Lakes, with a run that starts in late summer and does not really stop until spring.

The upper river is float country. Guides run drift boats and long river boats through the reaches near Sharon, Smithville and Sherman, throwing hex patterns on June nights and streamers the rest of the season, and the Manistee hex hatch is a Michigan institution worth planning a trip around. The lower river below Tippy is a different sport entirely: chinook from September, coho behind them, steelhead from October through April, fished from boats and from a heavily used bank fishery near the dam.

The Sherman gauge covers the upper river above the impoundments and is the number that matters for trout floats. Readings in the several-hundred to low-thousand cfs range are comfortable; spring melt and heavy rain push it up and color the sand-bottomed water, which clears again within a few days. Below Tippy, flows are set by the dam and run much higher, so read that reach by release schedule rather than by this gauge.

Kalkaska, Mesick and Wellston serve the upper river; Manistee and Brethren serve the tailwater. Both halves are busy in their seasons, and the salmon crowd below Tippy in September is its own experience.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Manistee River cfs

Now: 952 cfs, read 6:30 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 04124000, MANISTEE RIVER NEAR SHERMAN, MI).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

CCC Bridge and Sharon: upper river access in the Manistee River State Forest.
Smithville and Sherman: mid-upper access points near the gauge, boat launches and camps.
Hodenpyl Dam Pond: the bottom of the upper trout water.
Tippy Dam Recreation Area: the famous bank fishery below the dam.
High Bridge: the standard lower-river boat launch below Tippy.
Bear Creek and Rainbow Bend: lower river access toward Manistee.
Manistee Lake and the harbor: the mouth, for run timing and pier fishing.

Seasons

April through June: trout season opens, then caddis, sulphurs and the June hex hatch at night.
July and August: terrestrials and mouse fishing after dark on the upper river.
September and October: chinook and coho below Tippy Dam, the busiest weeks of the year.
November through April: steelhead in the lower river, with a spring run that peaks around ice-out.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Manistee River?

As of Nov 2, 6:30 am, the USGS gauge MANISTEE RIVER NEAR SHERMAN, MI reads 952 cfs, the 44th percentile for this date, with water temperature 48.7 F. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Manistee River?

Anglers target Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Chinook Salmon, Rainbow Trout, Steelhead on the Manistee River in Michigan.

Are there fishing guides on the Manistee River?

GuidedFloats lists 3 guides and outfitters on the Manistee River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Manistee River?

CCC Bridge and Sharon: upper river access in the Manistee River State Forest. Smithville and Sherman: mid-upper access points near the gauge, boat launches and camps. Hodenpyl Dam Pond: the bottom of the upper trout water. Tippy Dam Recreation Area: the famous bank fishery below the dam. High Bridge: the standard lower-river boat launch below Tippy. Bear Creek and Rainbow Bend: lower river access toward Manistee. Manistee Lake and the harbor: the mouth, for run timing and pier fishing.

When is the best time to fish the Manistee River?

April through June: trout season opens, then caddis, sulphurs and the June hex hatch at night. July and August: terrestrials and mouse fishing after dark on the upper river. September and October: chinook and coho below Tippy Dam, the busiest weeks of the year. November through April: steelhead in the lower river, with a spring run that peaks around ice-out.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Manistee River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Michigan agency site: https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/things-to-do/fishing/fishing-regulations