How to Catch Lake Trout in Minnesota: Arrowhead Lakes, Lake Superior & Winter Seasons

Lake trout in Minnesota live in two places: Lake Superior, and a few dozen deep, cold, clear inland lakes concentrated in the Arrowhead, many of them inside the Boundary Waters. You catch them shallow in May and again through the ice, and deep the rest of the open-water season. The regulation that trips people up is the winter opener: lakes entirely inside the BWCAW open January 1, while lakes outside or partly outside it open about two weeks later. In both cases the 2026-27 inland limit is 2 fish.

Identification and habits

Lake trout are a char, not a true trout. Look for:

• A deeply forked tail. This is the quickest way to separate a lake trout from a splake (slightly forked) or brook trout (nearly square).
• Light, cream-colored spots on a darker gray-green body, with no red or blue-haloed spots.
• White leading edges on the lower fins, less vivid than a brook trout's.

They need cold, oxygen-rich water, roughly 50 degrees or cooler, which restricts them to lakes deep enough to hold that kind of water all summer. They eat cisco (tullibee), smelt, small whitefish and invertebrates, and they grow slowly. A big inland lake trout can be decades old. They spawn in fall over clean rock rubble, which is why the summer season closes at the end of September.

Where they live

Arrowhead and Boundary Waters lakes

Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties hold the large majority of Minnesota's native inland lake trout lakes. Well-known road-accessible or partly accessible waters include Burntside and Snowbank near Ely, and Gunflint, Loon, Clearwater, West Bearskin and Saganaga along the Gunflint Trail. Inside the wilderness, lakes such as Knife, Kekekabic, Tuscarora and Gabimichigami are classic paddle-in and ski-in destinations. Browse /lakes/cook-county, /lakes/lake-county and /lakes/st-louis-county, and see the Boundary Waters lakes guide for permit and access basics.

Lake Superior

Superior has the state's largest lake trout population, a real recovery story after the sea lamprey collapse of the mid-1900s. Fish are caught from charter and private boats out of Duluth, Two Harbors, Silver Bay and Grand Marais, and from shore and small boats when the water is cold in spring and fall. See fishing near Duluth.

Stocked lakes and mine pits

Outside the Arrowhead, the DNR maintains lake trout in a small number of deep lakes and former iron mine pits. The 2026 regulations list special lake trout rules for several Cuyuna Range pits in Crow Wing County and for Caribou Lake in Itasca County, and Grindstone Lake in Pine County has long been managed for trout. Background on the pits is in mine pit lakes of the Cuyuna and Iron Range.

Season by season

Period	Where the fish are	Approach
May opener to early June	Shallow, often 5 to 25 feet, cruising rocky shorelines and points	Cast or flat-line troll spoons and minnow baits; fish from a canoe
Mid-June to September	Below the thermocline, often 40 to 80 feet or deeper, near humps and steep breaks	Vertical jigging, heavy trolling weights, downriggers, lead-core
October to December	Spawning on rock reefs	Season closed on inland waters
January to March	Roaming, anywhere from just under the ice to near the bottom over 30 to 70 feet	Jigging tubes and spoons, set lines with dead bait

Techniques and rigs

Spring shallow fishing

In the two or three weeks after the mid-May opener, surface water on Arrowhead lakes is still in the 40s and lake trout hunt the shallows. Troll a slender spoon or a floating minnow bait 100 feet or more behind a slowly paddled canoe along rocky shorelines, or cast heavy spoons from points. This is the easiest lake trout fishing of the year and requires no special gear.

Summer deep fishing

• Vertical jigging: Find bait and fish marks on sonar off deep points and sunken humps, then drop a 1 to 2 ounce jig, a heavy spoon or a white tube jig. Lift sharply and let it flutter down. Strikes often come on the drop.
• Trolling: From a canoe, a three-way rig with a 2 to 4 ounce weight and a light spoon gets down without a downrigger. On Lake Superior and larger inland lakes, downriggers, dipsy divers and lead-core line with spoons are standard.

Ice fishing

Winter is when many Minnesotans meet this fish. Lake trout are aggressive under the ice and will chase a lure a long way.

1. Set up over 30 to 70 feet near steep structure: points, saddles between islands, the edges of humps.
2. Jig a white or smelt-colored tube jig, a bucktail or a heavy spoon tipped with a strip of cisco or a minnow head.
3. Watch your flasher for fish that appear at any depth. When one rises to the bait, reel away from it. A lake trout that is chasing usually strikes; one that is allowed to inspect a stationary bait often leaves.
4. Where two lines are legal, put a dead cisco or sucker on a tip-up or set line a few feet off bottom in a nearby hole. You must stay within 200 feet of a tip-up.

Slush, deep snow and long hauls are the reality of trout lakes in winter. Read Minnesota ice thickness safety and remember that motorized travel is not allowed inside the wilderness.

Gear

• Open water casting and trolling: Medium to medium-heavy spinning or baitcasting rod, 10 to 14 pound line or 20 pound braid with a fluorocarbon leader.
• Deep jigging: A fairly stiff rod and low-stretch braid so you can feel the lure and set the hook at 60 feet.
• Ice: A 32 to 40 inch medium-heavy rod, a reel with a smooth drag, 10 to 15 pound braid and a 10 to 12 pound fluorocarbon leader. Lake trout run hard; cheap drags fail.
• Holes: Drill 8-inch or larger. Big fish are lost at the hole.

Minnesota lake trout regulations, 2026-27

Verified against the 2026 Minnesota DNR fishing regulations (effective March 1, 2026 through February 28, 2027):

Water	Season	Possession limit
Inland lakes, summer	May 9 to September 30, 2026	2
Winter, lakes outside or partly outside the BWCAW	January 16 to March 31, 2027 (2026 season was January 17 to March 31)	2
Winter, lakes entirely within the BWCAW	January 1 to March 31, 2027	2
Lake Superior	December 1, 2025 to October 4, 2026; December 1, 2026 to October 3, 2027	3

Details that matter:

• Entirely within means entirely. A lake that straddles the wilderness boundary, with a road-access end and a wilderness end, follows the later opener.
• Canada-Minnesota border lakes such as Saganaga, Gunflint and Knife are listed separately. In the 2026 book, the winter season on border lakes outside or partly outside the BWCAW closes March 15, earlier than inland lakes. Check the border waters table.
• Special regulations. The 2026 book lists catch-and-release-only lake trout rules for Little Trout and Mukooda lakes in St. Louis County, and a 20-inch minimum with a possession limit of 1 on Caribou Lake (Itasca County) and on several Cuyuna mine pits.
• Trout and salmon stamp. Required, with the usual age and license exemptions, to possess any trout, to fish designated trout lakes and to fish Lake Superior. The 2026 price was 10 dollars. Some lake trout lakes are also designated stream trout lakes, where only one line is allowed even in winter.
• Transport. Lake trout may be filleted for transport on land but each fillet must keep a 1-inch square patch of skin.

Dates and limits are set yearly. Confirm before your trip, and see Minnesota fishing regulations explained for how to read the booklet.

State record

Per the DNR state record fish program, the heaviest listed lake trout is 43 pounds 8 ounces, caught in Lake Superior near Hovland in Cook County on May 30, 1955. It sits in the non-certified weight category, and the certified weight record is open. The catch-and-release record is a 45.5 inch lake trout caught on Lake Superior in Lake County on May 9, 2026.

Handling and release

• Deep-caught fish do not always survive release. Lake trout handle pressure change better than walleye, but fish hauled quickly from very deep water in warm months face both pressure stress and a warm surface layer. If you plan to release fish, fish in spring or winter when water is cold top to bottom, and consider stopping once you have your two.
• Keep them in the water. Unhook at the side of the boat or in the hole when you can. On the ice, bare gills and eyes freeze in seconds in subzero air.
• Release the big ones. A 15-pound inland lake trout may be older than the angler holding it, and small lakes cannot replace those fish quickly. Mid-sized fish are better eating anyway.

Bottom line

• Know which side of the wilderness boundary your lake is on. January 1 applies only to lakes entirely within the BWCAW; everything else waits until mid-January.
• Fish shallow in May and under the ice; fish deep and vertical in summer.
• Carry a trout stamp, keep no more than two inland fish, and let the old ones go.