Coattail Lake near Munising: Fishing Spots, Seasons and Access

• Overview

  Coattail Lake is one of the Schoolcraft County listings for Michigan. Country round the bank runs to mixed forest. Roughly 47 acres: a morning covers one end, an afternoon the other. Head to Munising, 14 miles away, for anything you forgot. It is 139 miles to Green Bay, the nearest city. Being near a boundary, it pays to know which side you are fishing.

• Where to Fish on Coattail Lake

  Depth is not on record here, which means reading the ground instead. This is a lake, so the margins and the first drop matter most. Still water like this holds fish on the edges rather than out in the open. Reported across Schoolcraft County: rainbow smelt, alewife, bloater, yellow perch and white sucker. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. The shape of Coattail Lake rewards a slow walk along one bank.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Average temperature peaks around 65°F in July and bottoms out near 15°F in January. Cold locks it up for a good stretch each year. After mid April the shallows warm and the fish move up. Averages suggest open water from about mid April through to roughly early December. Fishing peaks soon after break-up and again before the cold returns. That is the shape of the year on Coattail Lake.

• Tackle & Baits

  Whether the bank is open is not something our records settle. Nothing formal is recorded here: no ramp, no car park, no marked path. Largemouth respond to soft plastics tight to cover; go weedless where the growth is heavy. Where the road in crosses private land, ask first. Where parking is tight, arriving early solves most problems. Onega Lake sits 0.4 miles off and takes the overflow. Nothing on Coattail Lake should be assumed from this page alone.