Whitefish Lake (Crow Wing County, DOW 18031000)

Crow Wing County, Minnesota - DNR stocking history, depth and survey data

Minnesota · Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) · DOW 18031000

DNR records show 25 stocking entries at Whitefish Lake (Crow Wing County, DOW 18031000) since 2016, most recently walleye fry in 2025 (5,000,000 fish).

• Whitefish Lake (Crow Wing County, DOW 18031000) has 25 DNR stocking records across 10 years (2016-2025): walleye (25).
• The most-stocked species by count is walleye: 54,219,956 fish on record.
• Maximum depth 138 ft; surface area 7,714 acres, 2,713 littoral acres, 32.2 miles of shoreline, per the DNR lake survey.
• Average water clarity (Secchi depth) 11.8 ft.
• Fish species DNR lists here: black bullhead, black crappie, bluegill, bowfin (dogfish), brown bullhead, burbot, greater redhorse, green sunfish, hybrid sunfish, lake whitefish, largemouth bass, northern pike, and 11 more.
• 7 public accesses on the DNR list.
• Most recent DNR fish survey: September 17, 2025 (targeted survey).
• Crow Wing County, nearest town Cross Lake; DNR lake number (DOW) 18031000.

Depth map

Bathymetric contours from the Minnesota DNR lake survey mapped 6/26/1961 (orig map); depths in feet. Simplified for the web; not for navigation.

Stocking history

² fish purchased by the DNR for stocking.

Public accesses

DNR fish survey, 2025

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.

The current management plan calls for 5 million Walleye fry to be stocked annually into Whitefish and another 880,000 into connected Cross Lake. Whitefish is also stocked in even numbered years with Walleye fingerlings at the rate of one pound per littoral acre (2,714 pounds). Prior to the current plan, Whitefish was considered a "core" lake and as such was stocked for a number of years at a rate of 2 pounds per littoral acre. Given that additional stocking did not result in an increase in abundance, stocking reverted to the original 1 pound per littoral acre rate in 2022. Night electrofishing was conducted on September 17th, 2025, to monitor the abundance of young-of-the-year (YOY) Walleyes. The total sample time was 2 hours with no YOY Walleye caught. YOY Walleye were caught at the rate of 12 per hour the previous year (2024) and past catches have been as high as 44.4 per hour. Age 1 and older Walleye were caught at the rate of 5.0 per hour. These fish ranged in size from 8.3 to 22.2 inches, with a mean length of 12.2 inches.

Minnesota DNR survey narrative, September 17, 2025.

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