McKenney Lake Fishing near Melrose, Minnesota

• Overview

  Stearns County in Minnesota is where McKenney Lake sits. What surrounds it is pine and birch. It covers about 22 acres, so this is small water you can walk round in under an hour. It is one of the smaller waters we list in Stearns County. The closest town, Melrose, is 5.2 miles away. For a city, Minneapolis is 89 miles off. A county boundary sits nearby, which can matter for local access rules.

• Where to Fish on McKenney Lake

  Depth remains unrecorded, so treat the first session as a survey. Weed, then depth: that is the order to fish a water of this kind. The productive water is a rod length or two out, not a hundred. Reported across Stearns County: largemouth bass, bluegill, northern pike, walleye and black crappie. County records show what lives in the area; the local agency holds the water-by-water list. Work McKenney Lake in sections rather than trying to cover it.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Temperature averages peak at 71°F in July and bottom out at 10°F in January. Winter shuts the surface down for months. Ice fishing carries the winter, and the water opens about early April. Break-up sits around early April on average, with the water closing again about late November. Reckon on open water from spring through to late autumn, with May and June the strongest. The season on McKenney Lake rarely departs from it.

• Tackle & Baits

  Our records carry no access rule either way. There is no mapped parking or launch nearby, which keeps numbers down. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Look for a notice board at the entrance. Night access is frequently treated as a separate matter. Should this one be busy, Wolf Lake is 1.5 miles off. Nothing here settles the position at McKenney Lake for certain.