Glen Schmitt

As a popular entry point to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Sawbill Lake in Cook County receives its share of visitors each year.

The lake’s physical features favor bass and panfish. An abundance of bulrushes, cattails, and submerged vegetation provide ideal spawning and rearing habitat for those species.

There are quite a few lakes named Round in and around Aitkin County. One in particular, the one you’ll learn about this week, is tucked in the shadow of Lake Mille Lacs’ north shore.
This 736-acre Round Lake is an extremely clear body of water with clarity that’s usually around 15 feet or more. Combine that with its abundance of sandy beaches, and you can count on recreational lake users to be as prevalent as anglers much of the summer.

The Crow Wing Chain of Lakes in Hubbard County consists of 11 bodies of water known for their solid multi-species angling opportunities.
Ninth and Tenth Crow Wing are two of the smaller lakes in this system, combining for just over 400 acres of water.

Chisago Lake borders the town of Chisago City in east-central Minnesota and is connected to South Lindstrom Lake by a navigable channel. The two lakes differ in size and depth, but there’s plenty of fish movement between them.

With an abundance of rock, rubble, boulders, inlets, and outlets, Shagawa Lake near Ely appears to be designed for walleyes.

Like many water bodies in central Minnesota, Stearns County’s Pearl Lake is a typical panfish/bass type of fishery. It’s a classically bowl-shaped lake, with limited structure and an abundance of vegetation both above and below its surface – ideal habitat for the aforementioned fish species.

There aren’t many lakes to choose from along the Blue Earth/Faribault county line in southern Minnesota. However, one worth noting is Lura Lake, just south of Mapleton. It’s a fishery with an interesting history that’s gone through some significant changes during the past 20 years or so.
Lura is a shallow lake with a maximum of depth of 9 feet, and it tends to “green up” during the summer months. Once its curlyleaf pondweed dies off in the summer, the lake turns into a sort of pea soup.