Woodside Lake in Lake County: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Woodside Lake is one of the Lake County waters in Minnesota. The bank is 1,476 feet above sea level. About 302 acres, so local knowledge or a boat saves a lot of walking. The shoreline runs about 7.3 miles, so it pays to pick a stretch and stay with it. It is among the larger waters listed here for Lake County. The nearest place of any size is Atikokan, 34 miles away. For a city, Thunder Bay is 99 miles off. One jurisdiction covers this water end to end.

• Where to Fish on Woodside Lake

  No chart reached our records; the first cast is your sounding. Weed, then depth: that is the order to fish a water of this kind. Where the bottom changes texture, fish gather; find that line. Survey and observation records for Lake County include white sucker, yellow perch, northern pike, rainbow trout and walleye. Records at county level tell you what is around, not what is stocked here. On Woodside Lake the first feature you find is usually worth a session.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Typical July readings run about 65°F; by January the average is down near 3°F. Fishing here follows the temperature more than the calendar. Ice fishing carries the winter, and the water opens about late April. On the long-run averages the water opens up around late April and starts locking again about mid November. Fish feed hardest at the start and the close of the open season. Plan any trip to Woodside Lake around it.

• Tackle & Baits

  We hold no note on access for this one. This is a natural basin, not a dammed one. No launch point is recorded nearby, so this is a bank water unless you carry a boat in. Largemouth respond to soft plastics tight to cover; go weedless where the growth is heavy. Where access is informal, keep it that way by behaving. Where parking is tight, arriving early solves most problems. Should this one be busy, Hurlburt Lake is 1.2 miles off. For Woodside Lake, the notice at the access point is the final word.