To investigate the swimming capability of typical migrants and consequently serve the fishway design in the Red River (Yuanjiang) basin of China, we conducted an in-situ experiment on three presentative wild fish (body length:0.05-0.45 m), i.e., the Semilabeo obscurus, Cyprinus carpio rubrofuscus, and Bagarius rutilus, testing their induced flow velocity, critical swimming speed, and burst swimming speed. The results indicated that (1) the relative swimming ability of the three species presented a significantly negative correlation with body length compared to the absolute swimming ability. (2) On the difference between species, the B. rutilus exhibited the highest inductive flow velocity of (0.10±0.01) m/s, while the C. carpio rubrofuscus ranked first at critical swimming velocity ((0.66±0.01) m/s) and burst swimming velocity ((1.48±0.18) m/s). (3) By fitting the percentage of rheotaxis and flow velocity, the functional relationship between them of all tested fish was Pre=19.80V-1.13 (R²=0.96, P<0.05), deriving the rheotaxis velocity of 95% target fish of 0.11 m/s. In survival analysis, the critical and burst swimming speeds of the 95% target fish were 0.58 m/s and 1.01 m/s for cumulative fatigue, respectively. (4) Altogether, the fish passages targeting S. obscurus, C. carpio rubrofuscus, and B. rutilus was suggested to generate the in-channel velocity larger than 0.1 m/s, the velocity at the entrance from 0.6 to 1.0 m/s, the main-flow velocity in rest pools between 0.1 to 0.6 m/s, and the high velocity at verticle slot and orifice less than 0.8 m/s or slightly heighten to 0.8-1.0 m/s with a rougher sidewall or bottom. Our study on fish swimming ability in the Red River (Yuanjiang) facilitates the construction of future fish passage and rare fish conservation.