The fantastic Big and Little Manistee rivers draw fishermen all year-round for Steelhead, Brown Trout, and Salmon.

The Manistee River runs approximately 232 miles through the northern Lower Peninsula, through the villages of Sharon, Smithville, Mesick, and enters Lake Michigan at Manistee. It is considered, like the nearby Au Sable River, to be one of the best trout fisheries east of the Rockies. The river rises in the sand hills in southeastern Antrim County, on the border with Otsego County, about six miles southeast of the town of Alba. These deep glacial sands provide it with a remarkably stable flow of clean cold water year round, making it a popular river for year round salmon and steelhead fishing.