Winchell Lake

Winchell Lake covers about 876 acres in Cook County's Gunflint district, tucked well into the interior west of Brule Lake. Reaching it means working through a string of smaller connected lakes rather than paddling straight in, and the water opens up noticeably once you're past that tighter chain.

The lake runs deep for its size, dropping to 160 feet, with roughly three-quarters of the basin too deep to grow much in the way of weeds. Its shoreline winds around enough points and bays that the lake feels bigger than its acreage suggests, with room to find a stretch out of the wind. The water itself runs clear, with visibility regularly past 15 feet.

Lake trout are the defining fish here, holding a naturally reproducing population that's needed no stocking since 1955. The lake's deep, cold water stays oxygenated even under summer heat, giving trout a place to hold when shallower lakes get too warm, and recent surveys found catches running above normal for lakes of this type. Cisco fill out the forage base that keeps them fed, and northern pike turn up in smaller numbers but include some genuinely large fish.

Twelve campsites are spread around the lake, enough that finding an open one rarely means backtracking far, with enough separation between them for most groups to get real privacy.

Winchell Lake suits paddlers after a genuine lake trout fishery in clear, deep water, not just another stop between bigger lakes.