Lake Itasca State Park

I am looking to chase some muskies on of the lake itasca state parks. Any suggestion of which lake to target. Do i need to remove my outboard? Obviously cant use engine. Might just bring trolling motor and battery and rent one of their on site boats

Years ago Father-in-law and I fished Elk lake. We rented a boat from the park and used an electric motor to move around. Saw a few fish but never got one to eat.

Don’t know if you would have to remove your outboard or not.

I can’t help you on the Muskie subject. As far as the motor? My grandpa brought his boat a couple years ago to a state park, and they said having the motor on the boat is fine, just have to leave it trimmed up and can’t turn it on. It turned out to be a stupid rule though..

He took the kids out for a little lap around with the rented trolling motor. This is an old aluminum, deep boat. When he got the to the wind blown side of the lake, they couldn’t get back with the electric as it was a very small electric motor. Long story short, the Sheriff ended up coming out, dunked his boat in the water, MOTORED over to them, threw them a rope, and towed them back. Now tell me that wasn’t a waste of the officers time. But we were told even after going up to the park office that “you cannot use your gas motor”

You never want one of those 30lb thrust motors for anything-IMHO

tim hurley wrote:

You never want one of those 30lb thrust motors for anything-IMHO

I agree, but grandpa insisted that the boat gets out as he towed it with.. It was miserable..

You can use a motor in Itasca State Park. The sports rental place on Lake Itasca has boats with up to 25hp motors if you want to rent. I’m not sure about speed limits for Lake Itasca, but Elk Lake is slow/no-wake.

Elk has a fishable population; they can be pretty finicky fish as they’re well fed in the clear deep water. We’ve done best there trolling in June, casting during low-light times in summer or else late fall. I haven’t fished Itasca, but some friends have done alright trolling out there and catching some smaller fish. Haven’t heard of any real big ones from there yet.

Soak up the atmosphere when you go, you wont find a more beautiful and pristine place to go fishing!

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I fished Lake Itasca in the park a couple weeks ago. You can use any size boat/motor you want but there is a 10mph speed limit. Caught a bunch of largemourth.