Little Johnson Lake

Little Johnson Lake covers about 566 acres in St. Louis County, roughly 10 miles northwest of the town of Crane Lake, where it adjoins Voyageurs National Park. It carries a Superior National Forest district designation, but the lake itself sits outside the BWCA Wilderness boundary: no portage from any BWCA entry point reaches it. The way in is by boat, either running the Johnson River about 2.5 miles from Johnson Lake or coming in on old logging roads.

The lake runs shallow for its size. It bottoms out at 28 feet, but 83 percent of the surface is less than 15 feet deep, so most of the basin fishes more like a broad flat than a deep lake. The water is low in nutrients, which keeps growth modest and the lake clear rather than weedy or stained.

Walleye are the main draw, running mostly in the 15 to 17 inch range, and northern pike grow bigger, averaging 18 to 20 inches with some larger fish mixed in. Smallmouth bass are abundant here and run above average size for the species, in the 13 to 15 inch range. Yellow perch are common but small, mostly forage for the gamefish. Lake whitefish, rock bass, and white sucker round out the lake.

There's no campsite system here and no BWCA-style portage network. It's a lake for boating in and fishing rather than paddling in and camping, and its remoteness comes from the drive and the boat ride rather than from a wilderness permit or a carry.