A bass river chopped into pieces by dams
Think of the Huron as a string of separate rivers rather than one. It rises in the Huron Swamp at Indian Springs Metropark in northern Oakland County, runs about 125 miles, and reaches Lake Erie on the Wayne and Monroe county line, passing Dexter, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Belleville, Flat Rock and Rockwood on the way. DIY Fly Fishing counts 19 dams on it, and each impoundment turns the current off for a while: Kent Lake, Barton and Argo ponds in Ann Arbor, Ford and Belleville lakes below Ypsilanti. The flowing water between them is where the smallmouth are, and that is what this page is about.
The watershed drains 908 square miles, and 27.5 miles of the mainstem carry Michigan's Country-Scenic Natural River designation, the only such river in southeast Michigan. Schultz Outfitters, whose shop sits at 4 E Cross St in Ypsilanti, calls it a designated Blue Ribbon smallmouth stream and says it fishes from March through November. The fish list beyond bass is long: largemouth and pike in the slow water, carp and catfish in the city ponds, and steelhead, muskie and walleye below Belleville.
Mast Road to Delhi: every bass goes back
The one special bass rule on the river covers the best wading water. The 2026 Michigan Fishing Regulations list, under Washtenaw County, the Huron from the Mast Road Bridge in Dexter downstream to the Delhi Road Bridge as catch-and-immediate-release only on bass. Everywhere else statewide rules apply: bass can be fished catch-and-immediate-release all year, possession opens the Saturday before Memorial Day and runs to December 31, the minimum is 14 inches and the daily limit is five in any combination. Pike carry a 24-inch minimum with a two-fish limit, and walleye 15 inches with five fish.
Access in this reach is almost all Huron-Clinton Metroparks land. Hudson Mills Metropark has the Rapids View launch, Dexter-Huron Metropark sits below Dexter, and Delhi Metropark has two launches split by the class II rapids at Delhi: West Delhi above them, East Delhi near the Delhi Bridge below. Skip's Huron River Canoe Livery runs trips from Hudson Mills or Dexter-Huron to Delhi daily from May through Labor Day, so plan summer wading for early mornings or weekdays. DIY Fly Fishing singles out Delhi to Hudson Mills for its gravel runs, logjams and slow pools.
Through town: Barton, Argo and the Ypsilanti drags
Below Delhi the river slows into Barton Pond, then Argo, and the city stretch is a mix of ponded water with pike, largemouth, carp and catfish and short moving runs between the dams. The Ann Arbor gauge sits in this reach. MichOutdoors warns that drift boats have to be dragged in and out in the prime water above Ann Arbor and through Ypsilanti, because formal ramps are limited to Kent Lake, Belleville Lake, the park at the Lake Erie mouth and a few near Flat Rock. Canoes and kayaks are the practical boats, and the Huron River Water Trail, designated the 18th National Water Trail in 2015, maps 104 paddling miles with launches through all five trail towns.
Schultz is the obvious stop before fishing the Ypsilanti water. On the Orvis report the shop fills, its standing picks are Schultzy's Low Water Crayfish, Ian's Epoxy Minnow, the S3 Sculpin, a cone-head Muddler and a Mickey Finn on a 9-foot 7-weight.
Proud Lake to Wixom Road, the trout exception
Upstream in Oakland County the Huron holds a stocked trout fishery that has nothing to do with the bass water. The regulations list the river from 50 yards below Proud Lake Dam to 100 yards below Wixom Road, a 2.0-mile reach, under two sets of rules. From the last Saturday in April through September 30 it is managed as a Type 1 trout stream. From April 1 until the Friday before the last Saturday in April it is gear restricted: artificial flies only and zero possession, apart from one fish between 8 and 12 inches for children under 12. That early window is the April 1 opener anglers talk about.
Both DIY Fly Fishing and MichOutdoors describe the stocked opener at Proud Lake as crowded. Heavner Canoe Rentals has a put-in off Wixom Road below the lake, and MichOutdoors floats from there to Milford.
Below Belleville Dam: steelhead, and fish you should not eat
From Belleville Lake Dam in Wayne County downstream to Lake Erie the Huron is listed as a Type 4 trout stream, and this is the steelhead water, with fish from fall through spring concentrated under Flat Rock Dam. MichOutdoors is blunt that it is a small, pressured run, the river is colored and featureless, and most fish come to plugs and spawn. Fly anglers do best around logjams.
Keep what you catch in any stretch at your own risk. The Huron River Water Trail's advice on PFAS is that swimming and boating are safe with precautions, but do not eat the fish and avoid swallowing river foam. On this river, releasing everything is the default, not just a rule on the Dexter reach.
Cold-water streamers, then Hex and Ephoron
Schultz splits the year cleanly. March and April are pre-spawn: the shop says fishing turns on once water reaches about 40 degrees and this is the best shot at a 20 to 21 inch bass on a streamer. May and June bring water in the 50s, more fish and topwater, and are its busiest guide weeks. July and August are for poppers, foam and evening Hexagenia and Ephoron hatches, and from November fish pod up in winter holes, where lighter tippet and a slow retrieve matter.
The Fly Shack's Huron chart has Hendricksons in April and May, Sulphurs and Brown Drakes in May and June, Hex in June and July and Tricos from June into October. Its one difference with Schultz is the white fly, which it puts in September rather than high summer, so fish Ephoron from August and keep a few into September. Orvis lists Isonychia, caddis, hoppers and ants as the other bugs that bring bass up.
Reading the Ann Arbor number
USGS 04174500, Huron River at Ann Arbor, covers 729 square miles and has records back to 1914. DIY Fly Fishing names it as the gauge to check, but no shop publishes a wading number for it, so the 200 to 450 cfs range here comes from the long-term USGS monthly means for the fishing season: about 435 cfs in June, 264 in July, 210 in August, 229 in September and 288 in October. March and April average 872 and 853, which is why early-season fishing is streamers from a boat. Because dams sit above and below the gauge, a spike upstream reaches Ann Arbor late and levels out on the ponds. The Hamburg gauge (04172000) is a better read for the water around Kent Lake.