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Home › Waters › Minnesota › Lake Minnetonka
Lake · Western Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota, spread across Hennepin County from Wayzata and Excelsior west toward Mound and Spring Park · Minnesota

Lake Minnetonka Fishing Guides

A sprawling fourteen-thousand-acre metro lake of interconnected bays that supports one of the most heavily guided multi-species fisheries in Minnesota.

A broad northern lake broken by wooded islands under open sky

Map of the Lake Minnetonka

40 numbered points: 11 access points, 1 campsite, 3 outfitters, 10 bridges, 14 parks and conservation areas, 1 USGS gauge. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Oct 23, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (11)
  • Campsite (1)
  • Outfitter / canoe rental (3)
  • Bridge crossing (10)
  • Park / conservation area (14)
  • 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 40 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1Emerald Lake Bridge
Emerald Lake channel		Bridge crossing44.92884, -93.65160Channel bridge into Emerald Lake on the west side.
2Black Lake Bridge
Black Lake channel		Bridge crossing44.93241, -93.63125
3Casco Point Beach
Casco Point		Park / conservation area44.92550, -93.61886Public beach on Casco Point.
4Casco Point Park
Casco Point		Park / conservation area44.92234, -93.61275
5Lydiard Beach
Lydiard Beach, north shore		Park / conservation area44.92824, -93.60466
6Narrows Bridge
The Narrows		Bridge crossing44.92766, -93.59417Bridge over The Narrows - the main passage between the upper and lower lake.
7Arcola Bridge
Arcola channel		Bridge crossing44.94412, -93.57984
8Sunset Boat Yards
Boat yard, Spring Park		Access / boat ramp44.93704, -93.62534
9Blue Lagoon Marina
Marina, Spring Park		Access / boat ramp44.93628, -93.63723
10Metro Lakes Marina
Marina, Spring Park		Access / boat ramp44.93803, -93.64644
11Three Points Park
Three Points, north-west		Park / conservation area44.94536, -93.65204Shore park on the Three Points peninsula.
12Forest Lake Bridge
Forest Lake channel		Bridge crossing44.95309, -93.63567
13Highwood Park
Orono, west shore		Park / conservation area44.95214, -93.62768City nature area on the west shore.
14Antoine Park
Orono, west shore		Park / conservation area44.94629, -93.62272
15Coffee Bridge
Coffee Pass		Bridge crossing44.94276, -93.61712Bridge over Coffee Pass, between the west-side bays.
16Hendrickson Bridge
Hendrickson Pass		Bridge crossing44.95030, -93.61645
17North Arm Boat Landing
North Arm boat landing		Access / boat ramp44.95032, -93.61763Public ramp at the head of North Arm.
18Sandy Beach
Sandy Beach, North Arm		Park / conservation area44.95098, -93.62270Public beach at the North Arm.
19Boy Scout Bridge
Boy Scout channel		Bridge crossing44.95423, -93.61141
20Maxwell Bay Public Water Access Site
Minnesota DNR public water access, Maxwell Bay		Access / boat ramp44.95338, -93.60886State public water access site on Maxwell Bay.
21North Shore Marina Maxwell Bay
Marina, Maxwell Bay		Access / boat ramp44.95335, -93.60532
22Wayzata Marine
Boat dealer and service, Maxwell Bay		Outfitter / canoe rental44.95281, -93.60751
23Bederwood Park
Bederwood, north-west		Park / conservation area44.97775, -93.61623
24Noerenberg Bridge
Noerenberg Pass		Bridge crossing44.95525, -93.59925
25North Shore Marina Browns Bay
Marina, Browns Bay		Access / boat ramp44.96039, -93.55857
26Shaver Campground
Shaver Park, north-east		Campsite44.96886, -93.52168The lake's one mapped campground, on the north-east shore.
27Shaver Park
Shaver Park, north-east		Park / conservation area44.96918, -93.52096
28Wayzata Beach Park
Wayzata		Park / conservation area44.96890, -93.51958Town beach park at Wayzata, at the east end of the lake.
29Depot Docks
Wayzata depot docks		Access / boat ramp44.96947, -93.51621Public transient docks below the historic Wayzata depot.
30Excelsior Commons
Excelsior		Park / conservation area44.90725, -93.56766The Commons - Excelsior's lakefront park and swimming beach.
31Minnetonka Marina Gideon Bay
Marina, Gideon Bay		Access / boat ramp44.90324, -93.57903
32The Caribbean
Marina, Echo Bay		Access / boat ramp44.91590, -93.57624
33Erickson Marine
Boat dealer, Tonka Bay		Outfitter / canoe rental44.91597, -93.58075
34Tonka Bay Marina
Marina, Tonka Bay		Access / boat ramp44.91674, -93.58094
35Wekota Beach Park
Wekota Beach, Tonka Bay		Park / conservation area44.91748, -93.58221
36Crescent Beach
Crescent Beach, south shore		Park / conservation area44.90968, -93.60194
37Halstead Bay Bridge
Halstead Bay channel		Bridge crossing44.91884, -93.68425
38Surfside Park
Mound, west end		Park / conservation area44.92907, -93.67018Town park and beach at Mound, at the west end of the lake.
39Bay Rentals Inc.
Watercraft rental, Mound		Outfitter / canoe rental44.93046, -93.66907
40USGS 05289000 Lake Minnetonka above Grays Bay outlet
Primary level reference		USGS gauge44.95333, -93.48722Lake level at the Grays Bay outlet, the lake's only outflow.

Guides on the Lake Minnetonka

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 Lake Minnetonka

Minnetonka is not really one lake. It is a chain of more than thirty named bays joined by narrow channels, sprawling across the western Twin Cities suburbs from Wayzata at the eastern end to Mound and Halstead Bay in the west. That structure is the reason it fishes the way it does. Each bay has its own depth profile, its own weed growth and its own thermal timing, so a guide who knows the water can move from a shallow, dark-bottomed western bay that warms early to a deep, clear eastern basin that holds fish through midsummer without ever leaving the lake.

The species list is long and genuinely productive rather than nominal. Largemouth bass are the volume fishery and the reason most summer charters run, holding on the enormous cabbage and coontail flats that fill the mid-depth shelves. Smallmouth have expanded steadily in the clearer eastern bays and around the rock and rubble points. Muskellunge are the trophy draw and the fish that fills the fall calendar. Walleye, northern pike, crappie and bluegill round out the year, and the panfish alone support a serious winter guiding season once the ice is safe.

What anglers should understand before booking is that Minnetonka is a working recreational lake in a major metropolitan area. Boat traffic on a July weekend is heavy enough to change where and when the fishing happens, which is why most guided trips launch early or work the protected bays. This gauge sits above the Grays Bay outlet and reports lake level rather than water temperature, so it tells you where the lake stands against its operating range and whether the outlet is passing water, not what the surface temperature is doing.

This water needs a real photo

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

It is a regional stand-in, honestly captioned but generic — we will not put a name to a river we cannot prove. Send us a photograph you took here and it replaces the stand-in, with your credit on it.

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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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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.

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 Lake Minnetonka.

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.

Access

Grays Bay boat launch in Minnetonka - public ramp at the outlet end and the closest access to the gauge.
Maxwell Bay public access off North Shore Drive - well-used northern ramp with trailer parking.
Spring Park Bay access near Highway 15 - central launch with quick reach to the western bays.
Halsteds Bay public access in Minnetrista - the far western ramp, first water to warm in spring.
Carsons Bay access in Deephaven - small ramp serving the clear eastern basins.
Excelsior Commons - shoreline and dock access with parking in the village.
Gideons Bay landing near Shorewood - south-shore ramp convenient to the deeper eastern water.

Seasons

Spring: the shallow dark-bottomed western bays warm first and produce the earliest bass, crappie and pike fishing of the year.
Summer: heavy recreational traffic pushes guided trips to early mornings, with bass on the deep weed edges and muskie work beginning in earnest.
Fall: the strongest muskie weeks and excellent walleye and smallmouth fishing as the boat traffic disappears after Labor Day.
Winter: a major ice fishery, with house-based crappie, bluegill and perch fishing across the bays once travel is safe.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Lake Minnetonka?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Bluegill, Largemouth Bass, Muskellunge, Northern Pike, Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Yellow Perch on the Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota.

Are there fishing guides on the Lake Minnetonka?

GuidedFloats lists 2 guides and outfitters on the Lake Minnetonka. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Lake Minnetonka?

Grays Bay boat launch in Minnetonka - public ramp at the outlet end and the closest access to the gauge. Maxwell Bay public access off North Shore Drive - well-used northern ramp with trailer parking. Spring Park Bay access near Highway 15 - central launch with quick reach to the western bays. Halsteds Bay public access in Minnetrista - the far western ramp, first water to warm in spring. Carsons Bay access in Deephaven - small ramp serving the clear eastern basins. Excelsior Commons - shoreline and dock access with parking in the village. Gideons Bay landing near Shorewood - south-shore ramp...

When is the best time to fish the Lake Minnetonka?

Spring: the shallow dark-bottomed western bays warm first and produce the earliest bass, crappie and pike fishing of the year. Summer: heavy recreational traffic pushes guided trips to early mornings, with bass on the deep weed edges and muskie work beginning in earnest. Fall: the strongest muskie weeks and excellent walleye and smallmouth fishing as the boat traffic disappears after Labor Day. Winter: a major ice fishery, with house-based crappie, bluegill and perch fishing across the bays once travel is safe.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Lake Minnetonka?

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