Fishing at Plum Lake, Lake County, Minnesota

• Overview

  Plum Lake is listed under Lake County, Minnesota. The bank is 1,670 feet above sea level. At about 73 acres, a day is enough to walk the shoreline properly. The edge runs 1.3 miles or so, easy to work in an afternoon. It sits higher than most water we list in Minnesota. Start from Silver Bay, 29 miles down the road. It is 103 miles to Thunder Bay, the nearest city. No border sits close enough to matter.

• Where to Fish on Plum Lake

  There is no published depth for this one, so start shallow and work out. 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. Fish documented in Lake County include white sucker, yellow perch, northern pike, rainbow trout and walleye. Read it as a county summary, not a water-by-water list. Plum Lake responds to conditions more than to tactics.

• Seasonal Patterns

  The warmest month averages 64°F, the coldest about 5°F. Cold winters and warm summers give a wide working range. Ice-out usually falls in late April, and the weeks after it fish hardest. The open-water window runs from around late April to about late November in an average year. The open run goes from the thaw to the freeze, and April through October covers most of it. The season on Plum Lake rarely departs from it.

• Tackle & Baits

  Nothing in our records says who may fish here. No dam controls it, and the level follows the season. Access points are not mapped for this water, which suits people who like quiet. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Check locally before you travel, because a wasted drive is a long one. A polite question at the farm gate opens more banks than anything else. The nearest alternative is Bunny Lake, 1.7 miles out. Treat access at Plum Lake as something to verify.