Fishing at Mud Bay, Lake County, Minnesota

• Overview

  Lake County in Minnesota is where Mud Bay sits. It sits at 1,388 feet above sea level. The closest town, Ely, is 42 miles distant. For a city, Thunder Bay is 84 miles off. Near neighbours include: Plume Lake a touch under 0.6 miles, Ashdick Lake at about 0.7 miles, Swamp Lake a touch under 0.8 miles, Zephyr Lake at about 1.4 miles and Chaco Lake a touch under 1.4 miles. No boundary runs near, so the county rules hold throughout.

• Where to Fish on Mud Bay

  The records we hold are silent on depth, so plan to find it yourself. Reed and marsh margins hold fish through the moving hours. Tide runs this water, so time the session to the flow. Reported across Lake County: white sucker, yellow perch, northern pike, rainbow trout and walleye. Those are county-wide records, so not every one of them will be in this water. Mud Bay gives up more to patience than to distance.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Temperature averages peak at 64°F in July and bottom out at 4°F in January. Winter shuts things down for a spell, then spring reopens them fast. Hard water holds through the cold months, breaking up near late April. Average temperatures cross freezing around late April in spring and again near late November in autumn. May into June fishes hardest, and September gives a second good stretch before the lid returns. On Mud Bay that shapes the whole year.

• Tackle & Baits

  Whether the bank is open is not something our records settle. You can camp about half a mile away, going by the mapping. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Gates get locked out of season on water like this. Some stretches are reserved and marked as such on the ground. Plume Lake, 0.6 miles away, makes the obvious fallback. Where Mud Bay is concerned, a local answer beats a written one.