Coon-Sandwick Lake
Itasca County, Minnesota - DNR stocking history, depth and survey data
Minnesota · Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) · DOW 31052400
DNR records show 1 stocking entry at Coon-Sandwick Lake since 2023, most recently walleye fry in 2023 (500,000 fish).
- Coon-Sandwick Lake has 1 DNR stocking record across 1 year (2023-2023): walleye (1).
- The most-stocked species by count is walleye: 500,000 fish on record.
- Maximum depth 36 ft; surface area 594 acres, 504 littoral acres, 9.3 miles of shoreline, per the DNR lake survey.
- Average water clarity (Secchi depth) 12.5 ft.
- Fish species DNR lists here: black crappie, bluegill, brown bullhead, hybrid sunfish, largemouth bass, northern pike, pumpkinseed, walleye, yellow perch.
- 2 public accesses on the DNR list.
- Most recent DNR fish survey: (standard survey).
- Itasca County, nearest town Bigfork; DNR lake number (DOW) 31052400.
Stocking history
| Year | Species | Size | Number | Pounds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Walleye | fry | 500,000 | 5.0 |
Field note · Minnesota stocks by year, not by truck day: walleye fry go in within weeks of ice-out, fingerlings and yearlings mostly in fall, and stream trout in spring and fall. A row here means the fish went in during that year; DNR adds the year's rows after the fact, so the current year can look empty until winter.
Public accesses
| Type | Owner | Where |
|---|---|---|
| concrete ramp | Minnesota DNR | - State owned public access in Scenic State Park on west shore. |
| concrete ramp | Minnesota DNR | - State owned public access in Scenic State Park on southwest shore. |
DNR fish survey, 2022
| Species | Gear | Catch per net | Total catch | Avg lb |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluegill | Standard trap nets | 15.11 | 136 | 0.15 |
| Pumpkinseed | Standard trap nets | 3.22 | 29 | 0.11 |
| Black crappie | Standard trap nets | 2.33 | 21 | 0.09 |
| Largemouth bass | Standard trap nets | 1.00 | 9 | 1.63 |
| Northern pike | Standard trap nets | 1.00 | 9 | 2.11 |
| Hybrid sunfish | Standard trap nets | 0.44 | 4 | 0.53 |
| Brown bullhead | Standard trap nets | 0.11 | 1 | 1.54 |
| Yellow perch | Standard gill nets | 13.00 | 78 | 0.11 |
| Northern pike | Standard gill nets | 11.83 | 71 | 2.78 |
| Bluegill | Standard gill nets | 9.17 | 55 | 0.11 |
| Pumpkinseed | Standard gill nets | 8.00 | 48 | 0.13 |
| Black crappie | Standard gill nets | 4.67 | 28 | 0.18 |
| Walleye | Standard gill nets | 1.50 | 9 | 4.17 |
| Largemouth bass | Standard gill nets | 0.33 | 2 | 2.71 |
Catch per net (CPUE) is the DNR survey's count per gill net or trap net set; higher means more of that species were sampled, not a fishing forecast. Top species per gear shown; where we have no verified common name for a DNR code, the code itself is shown.
Coon-Sandwick Lake is a 627-acre lake located six miles southeast of Bigfork in north-central Itasca County. The lake is located entirely within Scenic State Park and there is no residential development on the lakeshore, other than the State Park campgrounds. Two boat accesses and a fishing pier are located within the park, which also offer boat and canoe rentals. State Park workers indicated that fishing is popular with park guests and most anglers target panfish and Northern Pike. The lake consists of a north basin (Coon) that has a maximum depth of 36 feet, and a south basin (Sandwick) with a maximum depth of 23 feet. The two basins are broadly connected and have been managed as a single water body. The principal difference between the two basins is a more irregularly shaped shoreline in Sandwick than in Coon. Most of the water is shallow (540 littoral acres) and fewer than 200 acres exceed a depth of 10 feet. The lake has clear water, as Secchi disc readings have ranged from 11 to 15 feet. The lake has moderately soft water and is mesotrophic with moderate fertility. There are no defined inlets or outlets. Coon-Sandwick supports a diverse aquatic plant community that provides valuable fish and wildlife habitat. Coon-Sandwick has a history of poor Northern Pike size structure. Special regulations have been in place since the early 1990s to improve the pike size structure and provide better angling for larger pike. Most recently, a 24-to-36-inch protected slot has been in place since 2007. The Lake Management Plan (LMP) was last revised in 2014. The goal of the LMP was to reduce the Northern Pike gill-net catch to 6.8/net (lake class average) with the proportion of fish exceeding 21 and 28 inches exceeding 50 and 25, with fish over 34 inches present. A standard lake survey was completed in 2022 to evaluate the effectiveness of the special Pike regulation and determine the status of the fish community. This assessment consisted of 6 gill nets and 9 trap nets compared to previous surveys which have used as many as 12 gill nets. The number of gill nets was reduced from 12 to 6 due to high pike catches and a concern for mortality of quality sized pike, and due to limited water >9 feet deep for setting gill nets. Catch rate data should be interpreted cautiously, given this reduction in gill net effort. The Northern Pike catch rate of 11.8 per gill net was lower than the previous survey but was still high compared to similar lakes and above average for Coon-Sandwick. When Northern Pike occur at high densities, average size is typically small, and growth is…
Minnesota DNR survey narrative, .
All Minnesota stockings · every Minnesota lake with a page · state CSV · this lake on DNR LakeFinder
Stocking rows, depths, accesses and survey figures are Minnesota DNR LakeFinder data as of 2026-09-02. Regulations, slot limits and special rules are on the DNR page linked above, not here.
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