Pere Marquette River

Fishing Guide - Salmon, Steelhead, Trout

The Pere Marquette River or "PM" as most call it is one of West Michigan's most famed rivers to fish,it is one of our guide services favorite to charter for King Salmon, Steelhead, and Trout. From the famous King Salmon runs to the top notch Trout fishing, this river is a true gem. This river is a designated blue ribbon trout stream that meanders through the beautiful Manistee National Forest, its main stream length is approximately 67 miles. The river starts just west of Reed City and makes its way west through the town of Baldwin and finally dumps into Pere Marquette Lake in the town of Ludington. We usually guide this river from a 17ft jet boat, but we also offer drift boat trips as well.

Steelhead fishing on this river is awesome for a smaller to mid sized river. They do not plant this river with Steelhead so most of the fish are Wild born fish that were spawned in its waters. PM Steelhead are truly a work of art and they fit right in with the Pere Marquettes classic trout water.

The King Salmon fishing on the Pere Marquette River is definitely some of the best fishing in the Great Lakes region, this makes it a big hit with our charter fishing customers. The average size of the King Salmon in this river always seem to be just a bit on the heavy side as well. They do not plant this river with Kings aka Chinook Salmon but the run that returns to the Pere Marquette is one of the best in the state. Some of these fish start to show their presence in July but most of the Kings will start showing in late August through the end of September, with October being a great month for spawning Kings. We like to start chartering this river for Kings starting mid to late August with crankbaits. We will pitch the crankbaits into the deep runs, bend holes, and log jams to entice these huge silver fish into inhaling your crankbait. We will also fish skein (Salmon eggs) on our guide trips for these early fish, properly prepared skein is hard to beat. We have been fishing the Pere Marquette River with skein for Kings since back when there were only a few others doing it, our guide service has the method and egg cure recipes down.