Ima Lake

Ima Lake covers about 742 acres in the Kawishiwi district, well into the interior southwest of Ely. The nearest entry points sit close to eight miles off as the crow flies, which puts real travel time between it and any road, and it functions less as a lake you pass through than one several other lakes connect back to.

It runs deep for its size, dropping to 116 feet, and less than a third of the lake is shallow enough to hold real weed growth or structure, so open, cold water dominates the basin. Rubble and ledgerock make up most of the shoreline, with gravel mixed in and only a small muck fringe here and there. What vegetation there is stays shallow, thinning out by around 9 feet down, with largeleaf pondweed the most common plant. The lake drains out through an old, nonfunctional logging dam into Jordan Lake.

Lake trout are the defining fish here. The lake stays cold and stratified enough through summer to hold the oxygen and temperature they need at depth, and they reproduce naturally rather than relying on stocking. Walleye hold steady numbers with reproduction spread across many year classes, cisco share the cold depths as forage even though their numbers have thinned over time, and northern pike work the shallower structure along shore.

Twelve campsites sit on Ima, none of them closed, giving a lake this size real room to spread out. Short, easy portages connect it in several directions, to Alworth, Jordan, and Hatchet Lakes, with a slightly longer one to Reflection Lake, making it more of a junction between routes than a dead end.

Ima Lake suits parties after a lake trout fishery well off the road rather than a quick stop, its depth and the number of lakes tied into it making it as much a crossroads as a destination.