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Home › Waters › Minnesota › Upper Red Lake
Lake · Beltrami County in far northern Minnesota, north of Bemidji · Minnesota

Upper Red Lake Fishing Guides

A vast, shallow, wind-driven walleye factory on the edge of the northern Minnesota peat country, and one of the few big lakes where a guided limit of eating-size fish is still a routine day.

Mist rising off a northern lake between granite and pine

Map of the Upper Red Lake

10 numbered points: 2 access points, 2 campsites, 1 bait & fly shop, 2 outfitters, 1 park or conservation area, 1 regulation section limit, 1 USGS gauge. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Oct 23, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (2)
  • Campsite (2)
  • Bait, tackle & fly shop (1)
  • Outfitter / canoe rental (2)
  • Park / conservation area (1)
  • Regulation section limit (1)
  • USGS gauge (1)
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Points are curated from OpenStreetMap and state agency sources; confirm access and hours before you go.

Print it. Bag it. Bring it.Phones die, screens crack, and most of this water has no signal. Print this map, fold it into a zip-top bag or dry bag with your license, and you have a backup your electronics can’t give you. Every marker is numbered so you can say exactly where you are.

Open the printable map
All 10 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1Boondocks Landing and Battle River Rentals
Resort landing, south-east shore		Access / boat ramp48.06624, -94.68471Resort landing at the Battle River corner of the lake.
2Outdoor Authority Fish House Rentals
Fish house rental, Waskish		Outfitter / canoe rental48.19634, -94.53125Rents fish houses for the winter season on the state-managed water.
3Big Bog State Recreation Area
Big Bog SRA, Waskish		Park / conservation area48.17538, -94.51297State recreation area at Waskish with the boardwalk out into the peat bog.
4Hillman's
Waskish		Bait, tackle & fly shop48.16691, -94.51201
5Red Lake State Forest
Red Lake State Forest		Campsite48.16547, -94.50928State forest camping on the Waskish side of the lake.
6Red Lake Rentals
Boat rental, north shore		Outfitter / canoe rental48.08862, -94.60499
7Rogers' on RED
Resort campground, north shore		Campsite48.08802, -94.60700
8JR's Red Lake Access
Resort access, north-east shore		Access / boat ramp48.07535, -94.63990
9USGS 05073500 Upper Red Lake at Waskish
Primary level reference		USGS gauge48.17520, -94.51483Lake level gauge for this water.
10Designated Special Management Waters - Upper Red Lake
Minnesota Rules 6264.0400, subp. 59		Regulation section limit48.12109, -94.77633Upper Red Lake and its listed tributaries are a designated special management water under Minnesota Rules 6264.0400. Check the current DNR regulations before you fish.

Guides on the Upper Red Lake

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

Order on this page: premium and outfitter plans first (labelled Premium placement), then claimed free profiles, then unclaimed — one published price, no bidding for position. How placement works

About the Upper Red Lake

Upper Red Lake is the smaller and more accessible of the two Red Lakes, and it is one of the genuine walleye destinations in North America. The basin covers roughly forty-eight thousand acres of open water on the Minnesota side of the boundary with the Red Lake Nation, which owns and manages Lower Red Lake to the west. What makes the lake unusual is its shape: it is enormous and it is shallow, averaging only about fifteen feet, with a soft bottom and very little structure to break the wind. Fish are not held by rock reefs or sharp breaks the way they are on most northern lakes. They roam, and a guide’s day is spent reading wind direction, water color and the depth band where the roaming schools have settled.

The fishery has a well-known recent history. Walleye were closed entirely in the late 1990s after a collapse, reopened in 2006 under a tightly managed harvest, and rebuilt into one of the most productive populations in the state. Regulations here move more than almost anywhere else in Minnesota, with slot limits and bag limits reset by the DNR as the year class structure changes, so checking the current rules before a trip is not optional.

Guided fishing on Upper Red divides cleanly by season. Open water is a drifting and trolling game, working spinner rigs and crankbaits across broad flats in eight to twelve feet. Winter is the bigger business: the lake supports one of the largest ice fishing operations in the country, with plowed roads, rental houses and whole villages of shelters out of Waskish. Crappie and perch fill out the winter card, and northern pike are common enough that most parties catch some without trying.

This water needs a real photo

The photo at the top of this page is not Upper Red Lake.

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Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

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We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

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5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

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Pool right now

1,173.73ft NAVD88
  • 24 hours0.00 ft → steady

Reading taken 35 min ago at USGS 05073500, UPPER RED LAKE AT WASKISH, MN. Elevation is the surface of the lake above the survey datum, not depth. Source.

Fished this water? Add a photo

Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Upper Red Lake.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Lake level alert

Tell me when the pool at Upper Red Lake ft (NAVD88)

Now: 1,173.73 ft pool elevation, read 6:30 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 05073500, UPPER RED LAKE AT WASKISH, MN).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Waskish public landing - the main state access on the east shore and the departure point for most guided boats.
Tamarac Bay - shallow protected water at the northeast corner, productive early and a refuge when the main lake blows.
Rogers Landing - north shore access with parking, used heavily during the ice season.
Highway 72 corridor - the road along the east side, with several small approaches and winter ice roads.
Battle River area - the northwest corner, farther from the crowd and worth the run on calm days.
County ice roads out of Waskish - plowed access maintained by local resorts through the winter fishery.
Bemidji, about sixty miles south - the nearest full-service town for lodging, tackle and licenses.

Seasons

Spring: the opener in May is the busiest stretch of the year, with fish shallow and spinner rigs working over dark flats.
Summer: drifting and trolling across open water in eight to twelve feet, with early and late light the most productive windows.
Fall: cooling water pulls larger walleye into predictable feeding periods and the crowds thin considerably.
Winter: the signature season here, with plowed ice roads, rental houses out of Waskish, and steady walleye, crappie and perch.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Upper Red Lake?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Northern Pike, Tullibee, Walleye, Yellow Perch on the Upper Red Lake in Minnesota.

Are there fishing guides on the Upper Red Lake?

GuidedFloats lists 1 guide and outfitters on the Upper Red Lake. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Upper Red Lake?

Waskish public landing - the main state access on the east shore and the departure point for most guided boats. Tamarac Bay - shallow protected water at the northeast corner, productive early and a refuge when the main lake blows. Rogers Landing - north shore access with parking, used heavily during the ice season. Highway 72 corridor - the road along the east side, with several small approaches and winter ice roads. Battle River area - the northwest corner, farther from the crowd and worth the run on calm days. County ice roads out of Waskish - plowed access maintained by local resorts throug...

When is the best time to fish the Upper Red Lake?

Spring: the opener in May is the busiest stretch of the year, with fish shallow and spinner rigs working over dark flats. Summer: drifting and trolling across open water in eight to twelve feet, with early and late light the most productive windows. Fall: cooling water pulls larger walleye into predictable feeding periods and the crowds thin considerably. Winter: the signature season here, with plowed ice roads, rental houses out of Waskish, and steady walleye, crappie and perch.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Upper Red Lake?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Minnesota agency site: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/regulations/fishing/index.html