Mille Lacs Lake

Mille Lacs Lake is a large, shallow lake held in place by a glacial moraine. It lies in Mille Lacs, Aitkin and Crow Wing counties, Minnesota, about 75 miles north of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The lake covers 132,516 acres (207 square miles), which makes it Minnesota's second-largest inland lake after Red Lake. Its maximum depth is 42 feet, and much of the main lake is 20 to 30 feet deep. Gravel and rock bars are common in the southern half. The basin was shaped by late Pleistocene glaciation, when meltwater was trapped behind a moraine. Garrison, Seguchie and Peterson creeks and Thains River flow in, and the Rum River drains the lake south to the Mississippi River at Anoka. Father Hennepin State Park and Mille Lacs Kathio State Park are on its shores, and parts of the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation border the lake.

The Minnesota DNR runs most of the public launches. They include Pike Point at Garrison, North Garrison Bay, Shah-bush-kung, Cove Bay, Liberty Beach, Malmo, Wealthwood, Cedar Creek and two sites in Father Hennepin State Park. The City of Wahkon runs the Wahkon access. Zebra mussels and spiny water fleas are present in the lake. The DNR asks boaters to clean and drain watercraft and equipment. A decontamination station is open 24 hours a day at the Shaw-Bosh-Kung Bay access on the west shore, about 8 miles south of Garrison. In 2024 the DNR listed the Garrison access among the sites it planned to modernize.

The lake is best known for walleye, and it also holds smallmouth bass, muskellunge, northern pike and tullibee. State-licensed anglers share the harvest with Ojibwe Tribes that keep fishing rights by treaty. Each year the state and the Tribal Nations agree on a harvest level. Special regulations change for the winter and open-water seasons and are posted at public accesses.