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Home › Waters › Minnesota › Mille Lacs Lake
Lake · Central Minnesota · Minnesota

Mille Lacs Lake Fishing Guides

A 132,000-acre central Minnesota basin an hour from the Twin Cities, holding one of the best trophy smallmouth fisheries in the country alongside a closely managed walleye population and big muskellunge.

Mist rising off a northern lake between granite and pine

Map of the Mille Lacs Lake

17 numbered points: 6 campsites, 1 outfitter, 7 parks and conservation areas, 1 agency office, 1 USGS gauge, 1 point of interest. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Oct 23, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Campsite (6)
  • Outfitter / canoe rental (1)
  • Park / conservation area (7)
  • Agency / conservation office (1)
  • USGS gauge (1)
  • Point of interest (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 17 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1Jake Regan Park
Garrison		Park / conservation area46.29508, -93.83035Small shore park at the north end of Garrison, on the Hwy 169 side.
2Garrison Concourse Wayside Park
Garrison Concourse, Hwy 169		Park / conservation area46.29414, -93.82393The WPA-built stone concourse and overlook - the classic view of the lake.
3Barnacles Resort & Campground
Resort campground, east shore		Campsite46.37020, -93.61340
4Hogsback Beach
Public beach, east shore		Park / conservation area46.36579, -93.58522Sand beach on the shallow east side.
5Pete's Retreat Campground & RV Park
Resort campground near Isle		Campsite46.34024, -93.51736
6Wayside Park
Wayside, south-east shore		Park / conservation area46.33514, -93.52616Highway wayside on the south-east shore; OSM carries only the generic name.
7Mac's Twin Bay Resort
Boat rental, Twin Bay		Outfitter / canoe rental46.17486, -93.48246Resort with boat rental on the south-east shore.
8Isle Lake View Park
Isle		Park / conservation area46.13896, -93.47394Town shore park at Isle, at the south-east corner.
9Lakeview Campground
Campground, Isle Bay		Campsite46.14796, -93.48685
10Father Hennepin State Park Campgrounds
Father Hennepin State Park		Campsite46.14754, -93.48872
11Father Hennepin State Park
State park, south shore at Isle		Park / conservation area46.14617, -93.48950State park on the south shore with the lake's main public swimming beach.
12Maple Grove Campground
Campground, Father Hennepin State Park		Campsite46.14759, -93.49047
13Pope Point
Viewpoint, south shore		Point of interest46.15122, -93.50515
14Mille Lacs Island Resort
Resort campground, west shore		Campsite46.11920, -93.54498
15Park Headquarters
Mille Lacs Kathio State Park		Agency / conservation office46.13561, -93.72518Park headquarters for Mille Lacs Kathio, at the lake's south-west corner.
16Mille Lacs Kathio State Park
State park, south-west shore		Park / conservation area46.14309, -93.73400Large state park on the Rum River outlet at the south-west corner of the lake.
17USGS 05284000 Mille Lacs Lake near Garrison
Primary level reference		USGS gauge46.30731, -93.81194Lake level gauge for this water.

Guides on the Mille Lacs 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 Mille Lacs Lake

Mille Lacs is a large, shallow, wind-swept basin in central Minnesota, roughly 132,000 acres of mostly hard bottom sitting about two hours north of Minneapolis. It is one of the most studied and most closely managed lakes in the state, and its walleye regulations change frequently in response to assessment data and to the treaty co-management framework the lake operates under. Anyone planning a trip should confirm the current rules rather than assume last year’s applied. The USGS gauge near Garrison reads lake stage.

The walleye population is what made the lake famous and it remains substantial, with fish relating to the gravel and rubble reefs that rise out of the main basin, the mud flats in summer, and the shoreline rock in low light. Regulations have run through catch-and-release and narrow harvest slots in recent years, and the fishery is well suited to anglers who are content to release fish.

What has surprised many visitors is the smallmouth bass fishing, which is now regarded among the very best trophy smallmouth waters in the United States. Fish over twenty inches are not remarkable here. They hold on the same reef and rock structure as the walleye and are most concentrated from late spring through fall. Muskellunge are a genuine trophy fishery as well, and the lake produces very large fish each season. Northern pike, yellow perch and tullibee round out the population.

The lake’s shallow bowl and open fetch mean wind is the dominant variable. Waves build fast and steep, and the reef tops that hold fish are also what makes a rough day dangerous. Winter brings a large ice-fishing operation with plowed roads and rental houses out of the Garrison and Isle areas. Local guiding is well developed on both open water and ice.

This water needs a real photo

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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.

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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

1,250.93ft NAVD88
  • 24 hours+0.05 ft → steady

Reading taken 46 min ago at USGS 05284000, MILLE LACS LAKE NR GARRISON, MN. Elevation is the surface of the lake above the survey datum, not depth. Source.

Fished this water? Add a photo

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

Posting to Mille Lacs 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 Mille Lacs Lake ft (NAVD88)

Now: 1,250.93 ft pool elevation, read 5:15 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 05284000, MILLE LACS LAKE NR GARRISON, MN).

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

Access

Garrison public access — the USGS gauge area, improved ramp on the northwest shore.
Isle Bay public access — south-shore ramp with harbor protection and parking.
Wahkon public landing — south-shore access near the deeper southern basin.
Mille Lacs Kathio state park — northwest access with a ramp on the connected water.
Malmo and Cove Bay accesses — northeast-shore ramps toward the reef complex.
Onamia area landings — southern access with resort and guide services nearby.
Vineland and Indian Point accesses — west-shore ramps near the mud flats.

Seasons

Spring: the May opener puts walleye on the shoreline rock and shallow reefs, and smallmouth move onto the gravel to spawn through late May and early June.
Summer: walleye shift to the mud flats and deep reef edges; smallmouth fishing is excellent on rock all season, and muskellunge fishing builds through July and August.
Fall: the trophy season. Big smallmouth and very large walleye move shallow through September and October, and muskellunge fishing peaks right up to freeze-up.
Winter: a major ice fishery with plowed roads and rental houses from January into March, targeting walleye, perch, tullibee and burbot over the flats and reef edges.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Mille Lacs Lake?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Burbot, Muskellunge, Northern Pike, Smallmouth Bass, Tullibee, Walleye, Yellow Perch on the Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota.

Are there fishing guides on the Mille Lacs Lake?

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

Where can you access the Mille Lacs Lake?

Garrison public access — the USGS gauge area, improved ramp on the northwest shore. Isle Bay public access — south-shore ramp with harbor protection and parking. Wahkon public landing — south-shore access near the deeper southern basin. Mille Lacs Kathio state park — northwest access with a ramp on the connected water. Malmo and Cove Bay accesses — northeast-shore ramps toward the reef complex. Onamia area landings — southern access with resort and guide services nearby. Vineland and Indian Point accesses — west-shore ramps near the mud flats.

When is the best time to fish the Mille Lacs Lake?

Spring: the May opener puts walleye on the shoreline rock and shallow reefs, and smallmouth move onto the gravel to spawn through late May and early June. Summer: walleye shift to the mud flats and deep reef edges; smallmouth fishing is excellent on rock all season, and muskellunge fishing builds through July and August. Fall: the trophy season. Big smallmouth and very large walleye move shallow through September and October, and muskellunge fishing peaks right up to freeze-up. Winter: a major ice fishery with plowed roads and rental houses from January into March, targeting walleye, perch, tu...

Where are the fishing regulations for the Mille Lacs 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