Fly Fishing Spots for the Detroit Lakes Area of Minnesota

Fishing can be a hit and miss thing if you don’t know where the hot spots are. Let’s face it, if you don’t even know what streams or lakes are stocked you could just be drowning worms. Fly fishing is a great sport and can be great fun if you know where to go for the trout. I recently attended a meeting of the Fly Fishers Club in Fargo, North Dakota and heard from the experts in fish stocking in the Detroit Lakes area. David Friedl is a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources employee and works in the Detroit Lakes Area fisheries office as manager. He also lives and knows the Detroit Lakes area and fishes these same lakes and streams he works with. He knows the fish and where they are.

He recently was guest speaker at the Fly Fishers Club meeting and told us of the good spots that are stocked by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the ways to get to the these areas. These lakes and streams are all public access spots and can be fished by the public with a valid fishing license and trout stamps if you’re fishing for trout. As in all fishing you need to make sure you have the proper license and stamps to fish what you’re going for and you need to follow the rules and laws of the state you’re fishing in. This is something my family has to be acutely aware of living in the state of Minnesota and having so many spots just a mile or two across the nearby border of North Dakota.

These spots are all in Becker County and can easily be a quick day trip fishing if you live nearby. The Detroit Lakes area has some great fishing in the larger lakes with plenty of public access but it’s the smaller lakes and streams that have the trout and are harder to find out about. So here goes:

Elbow Lake Creek

In Becker County about 35 miles north of Detroit Lakes is a small creek that flows out of Elbow Lake and runs across Minnesota Highway 113. You can fish for trout north about 1 mile and south of the highway along the creek to Elbow Lake. The creek is a cold water creek that can sustain trout and people have been catching them in 2005.

Sucker Creek

Sucker Creek is a small creek that flows into Big Detroit Lake on the south side of the lake. It is a spring fed cold creek and is stocked with trout by the Minnesota DNR. Driving along the South Shore Drive you turn onto 290th Avenue and there is a small parking area at the beginning of a trail that leads to the creek. You can also park along South Shore Drive by the creek and walk up the creek but you need to make sure you stay along the creek, there is a small access way along the creek. The property adjoining the creek except for the access area along the creek is private property. The creek has trout but they do not venture much into the lake as the temperature is higher than the creek.

Meadow Lake

Meadow Lake is along Highway 59 in Becker County south of Detroit Lake, take Highway 59 south and it is across from Lake Melissa. This small lake is stocked with both Rainbow and Brown trout annually. The whole lake is state owned and public access with a good concrete ramp for boat access. Be careful with boats, straight out from the ramp is shallow water so go slow near the ramp. A lake survey from 1997 showed a few Brown trout of the 9 to 11 inch range but the Rainbow had 44 fish caught from 9 to 14 inches.

Hanson Lake

East and north of Detroit Lake is Hanson Lake in Becker County. It is right between Height of Land Lake and Cotton Lake and is part of the Hubbel Pond State Wildlife Management Area. Hanson lake is stock annually with 2500 Rainbow trout fingerlings. The 2003 lake survey caught 67 fish total ranging from 6 inches up to a whopping 24 inches. The lake has a good public access and a concrete boat ramp for boats. There is also an abundance of roads to get to good fishing spots along the shores of the lake.

Bad Medicine Lake or Lake of the Valley

Bad Medicine Lake is north of Detroit Lakes along Highway 113 in Becker county. The public access maintained by the Minnesota DOT is on the north end of the lake. Due to problems with the fattening up of the other types of fish, Bass,Pike and Walleye, on the smaller fingerling trout, the lake is stocked with yearling sized Rainbow Trout. The lake survey in 2001 caught 40 Rainbow trout from 9 to 19 inches range. There is also a good amount of other fish in the lake; largemouth bass, pike, rock bass and walleye.

These spots are some of the better known, at least by the Department of Natural Resources area manager, to catch trout using fly fishing. These are all stocked lakes and waters or people have been known to catch trout there in 2005. The information for the waters that are stocked was taken right from the Minnesota State DNR website here: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/index.html .

If there is information that yo would like about lakes in your area look at that states Department of Natural Resources website. They can be a wealth of valuable information to all anglers, regardless of what they are fishing for or what type of rod and reel they are using. Another good place for information is your local fishing supply store like Scheels. They have employees who love to fish, at least the ones by me do, and they will be glad to help you find the hot spots for whatever fish your going for.