Chisago Lake Stats
- Acres: 943
- Max Depth: 34 feet
- Mean Depth: 7 feet
- Clarity: 3.3 feet (2014)
- Water Color: Green
- Shore length: 13 miles
- Google Maps Location
Fish Species in Chisago Lake
- Northern Pike
- Walleye
- Largemouth Bass
- Black Crappie
- Bluegill
- Pumpkinseed
- Green Sunfish
- Hybrid Sunfish
- Yellow Perch
- Bullhead (Black, Brown, yellow)
- Bowfin (Dogfish)
- Common Carp
- White Sucker
Watch us fish Chisago Lake in early August
Boat Landings on Chisago Lake
Chisago lake has one public boat landing. The interesting thing about this landing is that it shares a landing with South Lindstrom lake.
The landing is in the channel that connects the two lakes together.
The parking lot is huge, accommodating 60 boat trailers.
It has a nice concrete launch with two slots and docks for each.
I always appreciate when there is a place to throw trash and porta-potties available.
This lake has special regulation when fishing bass. They are trying to increase the size of the largemouth bass, so you must release all bass 12 inches or bigger.
Commentary about Chisago lake
First of all, I must clarify for anyone not familiar with the name “Chisago,” it is NOT “Chicago.” The name Chisago actually comes from the Native American name, Ki Chi Saga, which means, “Fair and lovely waters.”
Chisago lake is right in the small town of Chisago, MN. At one time it was just one big lake. In 1948 when the railroad closed, they filled in the channels between lakes to put in a highway, which created five separate lakes.
We now have, Chisago, South Lindstrom, North Lindstrom, North Center and South Center lakes. All are named for the city they are closest to. Today the chain of lakes also includes Green lake, and Little Green Lake.
Chisago Lake is managed primarily for largemouth bass and walleye, but you can also catch northern pike, bluegills and black crappies. As you saw above, this lake was selected for an experimental regulation to help improve the largemouth bass population, by releasing all bass 12 inches or bigger.
The water here has a green tint to it and it also has a nice weed bed in the shallower areas. If you look closely, you can see a few fish in this picture.
Fishing Experience on Chisago Lake
I went fishing here in early August. After weeks of hot, clear days, this day turned cloudy and windy. The temperature also dropped down to 75 degrees. We fished Chisago in the morning hours, then fished South Lindstrom in the afternoon. Check out the lake review for South Lindstrom here.
The channel the landing is located in looked good, so we started there. We didn’t get any bites so we drove down to the far south end.
Above is a map of all the places we caught fish.
We started off slow, so we resorted to bluegill fishing and got our first one at spot 1.
We moved on to spot 2 and finally hooked into our first bass. It was 15 inches, which seemed pretty standard for this lake.
Spot 3 was decent. We caught a few bluegills and another 12 inch bass. It was fairly shallow at spot 3 with lots of lily pads. Our go to lure, the “Green Spinner,” produced most of our fish today. We find the one with a a green skirt and a single Colorado blade never lets us down.
Spot 4 according to the Sportsman’s Guide (which I highly recommend), is suppose to be a good place to catch northern pike. As we were slowly motoring over there, I threw out a line to troll behind the boat, and within seconds caught this lovely 26 incher.
We were running out of time, so we motored up to spot 5. The main part of the lake is pretty deep, except for a hump on the northwest corner. You can see the weeds sticking out of the water in the above photo. I pulled another 15 inch bass out of there.
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