Little Mesaba Lake Fishing near Aurora, Minnesota

• Overview

  Little Mesaba Lake is a Saint Louis County water, Minnesota side. Elevation runs to 1,529 feet. Roughly 213 acres: a morning covers one end, an afternoon the other. It is among the larger waters listed here for Saint Louis County. Head to Aurora, 2.5 miles away, for anything you forgot. Hoyt Lakes follows at 5.7 miles, then Gilbert at 12 miles. The nearest boundary is a fair way off.

• Where to Fish on Little Mesaba Lake

  Without a survey to go on, judge depth from how the bank falls away. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. This is a lake, so the margins and the first drop matter most. Species logged across Saint Louis County include yellow perch, northern pike, white sucker and rainbow trout. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. Little Mesaba Lake gives up more to patience than to distance.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Typical July readings run about 66°F; by January the average is down near 3°F. Winter puts a hard lid on this one. Expect a solid lid for months and a thaw around late April. Expect the water usable from around late April until roughly late November. Just after the ice goes and just before it returns, the fishing lifts. That is the shape of the year on Little Mesaba Lake.

• Tackle & Baits

  Access status is simply unknown for this water. We find no slipway, car park or made path within a short radius, so treat access as rough. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. State or provincial rules still apply whatever the bank status. Rules for boats are stricter than rules for the bank in many places. East Stephens Settling Basin, 1.7 miles away, makes the obvious fallback. Treat Little Mesaba Lake as unsettled until someone local tells you otherwise.