First Lake in Iron County: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Iron County, Michigan, is where First Lake sits. It stands 1,358 feet above sea level. The water covers some 192 acres, so pick a bank rather than trying to cover it all. About 2.7 miles of bank, so nothing stays unexplored for long. On our Iron County list it sits near the top for size. Crystal Falls is the closest town at 4.2 miles. The big place round here is Green Bay, 110 miles distant. It lies deep inside the county rather than near an edge.

• Where to Fish on First Lake

  Depth went unrecorded, which puts the reading back on you. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. A soft bed grows weed late into autumn, which keeps fish shallow. Open biodiversity records for Iron County list brown trout, yellow perch, northern pike, walleye and white sucker. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. At First Lake the first feature you find is worth twenty minutes.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Climate records put July near 65°F and January near 10°F. The year splits cleanly: hard water, then open water. Winter fishing happens on the ice here, with open water back around mid April. Ice clears near mid April and comes back about late November in a typical year. Reckon on open water from spring through to late autumn, with May and June the strongest. Keep it in mind when planning a trip to First Lake.

• Tackle & Baits

  The access position is unclear from public sources. This is a natural basin, not a dammed one. The slipway at Bewabic State Park Boat Launch is half a mile away. There is recorded parking some half a mile off. There is a pier recorded roughly half a mile away. Toilets show in mapping about half a mile away. Gates get locked out of season on water like this. Where the way in crosses private ground, ask first. Mud Lake, 0.6 miles away, makes the obvious fallback. Nothing here settles the position at First Lake for certain.