The Michigan Natural Resources Commission approved a package of updates to state fisheries rules on Sept. 9 that took immediate effect on Sept. 10, adjusting sturgeon, trout and salmon regulations on Upper Peninsula and boundary waters shared with Wisconsin. The changes are contained in Fisheries Orders 254 and 205 and were designed to remove outdated language, add species where new fisheries have emerged, and match Wisconsin regulations on the Menominee River.
On the Menominee River in Dickinson, Iron and Menominee counties, the lake sturgeon regulations were rewritten to restore a September catch-and-immediate-release season downstream of the Grand Rapids Dam that had been removed last fall by an unintended drafting change. Upstream of the Grand Rapids Dam, the catch-and-immediate-release season runs from the first Saturday in June through the first Sunday in March, with a separate possession season from the first Saturday in September through Sept. 30 permitting one fish per angler with a 60-inch minimum length. Downstream of the Grand Rapids Dam to the end of the breakwall in Green Bay, only catch-and-immediate-release is permitted during the September window, with a possession limit of zero. Anglers who retain a lake sturgeon anywhere in Michigan must register the harvest within 24 hours online, by phone at 844-345-FISH, or in person at a Department of Natural Resources customer service center.
The Type E inland lake classification in Fisheries Order 254 has been amended to add salmon to a shared three-fish daily possession limit alongside trout. The change is aimed at Torch Lake in Antrim County and connected waters where an Atlantic salmon fishery has been developing from recent stocking activity. Silver Lake in Marquette County has been moved out of Type B regulations to standard general fishing rules, following a habitat evaluation that concluded the basin cannot sustain stocked or naturally reproducing trout populations. Stocking on the lake ended in 2002, and the Silver Lake Dam failure in the spring of 2003 shifted the reservoir’s fish community toward warmwater species including smallmouth bass and northern pike after refill.
The updated boundary-water regulations retain a five-fish daily possession limit for trout and salmon on the Montreal and Menominee rivers from their mouths to the first upstream dam, with a 10-inch minimum size. Above the first dam and on the Brule River downstream of U.S. Highway 2, the season for trout and salmon runs from the last Saturday in April through Sept. 30 with a seven-inch minimum. The 2026 Michigan annual fishing license is valid through March 31, 2027, and the full text of the amended order and the interactive Inland Trout and Salmon Regulations map are posted through the state’s fishing regulations portal.
