Fishing at Poverty Lake, Cook County, Minnesota

• Overview

  You will find Poverty Lake in Cook County, Minnesota. Everything around it is pine and birch. Small at around 9 acres: two anglers spread out cover most of it. Our Cook County list holds plenty of bigger water. Grand Marais is the closest place, 23 miles off. Thunder Bay is the closest city, 73 miles away. This one is safely inside the county line.

• Where to Fish on Poverty Lake

  Depth went unrecorded, which puts the reading back on you. The shallow end warms first and pulls fish in ahead of the rest. A natural lake fishes on cover, and cover here means weed and timber. Survey and observation records for Cook County include white sucker, yellow perch and northern pike. It is the county picture; the agency list is water-specific. At Poverty Lake the first feature you find is worth twenty minutes.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Long-term averages put July at about 63°F and January near 5°F. Expect a real winter and a strong spring after it. Ice fishing carries the winter, and the water opens about early May. The open-water window runs from around early May to about mid November in an average year. The shoulder weeks of the open season are the productive ones. It holds true on Poverty Lake more years than not.

• Tackle & Baits

  No public source sets out the position on this bank. Mapping records toilets within half a mile. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Some banks are open only from a marked point. Where the way in crosses private ground, ask first. Should this one be busy, Famine Lake is 0.4 miles off. Treat access at Poverty Lake as something to verify.