Game fish · trout and salmon family
Rainbow trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss · also called steelhead (the Lake Superior form)
Introduced to Minnesota in the late 1800s; native to western North America.
- Water
- Cold water, though it survives warmer water than some other trout
- Steelhead
- A rainbow that lives in Lake Superior and spawns in North Shore rivers
- Minnesota record
- Rainbow Trout / steelhead: 16 lb 6 oz, 33 in — Devil Track River, Cook County, 1980
Where rainbow trout have been recorded
47 of the 1,788 Minnesota lakes on this site with fish records list rainbow trout, across 17 counties. Tap a dot to open that lake’s depth map.
Recorded here Other lakes with fish records
How we know
- 31lakes where a DNR fisheries survey caught them
- 44lakes the DNR has stocked since 2016; 16 of them are listed on that stocking alone
A lake can appear in more than one line. A lake that isn’t listed may still have them: records exist only where someone caught, netted or stocked them.
Inland lakes on this list run from 6 to 982 acres (median 44) and from 15 to 500 ft deep (median 60 ft).
How many turn up in DNR surveys
Minnesota DNR lake surveys use standard gear: gill nets set offshore for 24 hours (the main gear for walleye, northern pike, yellow perch, cisco, whitefish and trout), trap nets set near shore (the main gear for bluegill, crappie and bullheads), and on some lakes electrofishing, most often for bass. The DNR reports each gear separately, as fish per net set. These rates come from the newest standard survey of each lake on this site, 1959–2025 — a measure of how many fish a lake holds, not how many an angler will catch.
- Found in
- 24 of 1579 lakes surveyed this way
- Typical rate
- 3.2 per gill net where found
- Highest
- 76 per gill net
- Method
- fish per gill net set
“Typical” is the median across the lakes where the survey caught at least one. Each gear catches different fish, so the rates are not added together. In trap nets it turned up in 13 lakes at a typical 0.89 per trap net set. A single survey is a snapshot of one season.
Highest survey rates on this site
- Diamond Lake, Cass 2021 76
- Blacksmith Lake, Hubbard 2021 54
- Newman Lake, Hubbard 2021 44
- Crappie Lake, Hubbard 2021 30
- Divide Lake, Lake County 2022 8.5
- Deep Lake, Clearwater 2022 8.2
- Hanson Lake, Becker 2023 8.0
- Hazel Lake, Cass 2023 8.0
- Sand Lake, St. Louis 2005 6.7
- Mahnomen, Alstead & Arco Lake, Crow Wing 2022 4.6
Fish per gill net set, with survey year. Survey effort and season differ between lakes.
Often found with
Share of these lakes that also list each fish.
How to recognize it
An olive-green back, a pink stripe along the side and dark spots on a light background, with small black spots over the tail.
Don’t confuse it with
Life in a Minnesota lake
Rainbow trout arrived in Minnesota by introduction in the late 1800s. Though a coldwater species, they tolerate warmer water than some trout do, and juveniles spend their early years in small streams before moving into bigger water.
Minnesota's trout streams are concentrated in the southeast and on Lake Superior's North Shore. Steelhead are rainbow trout that live mainly in Lake Superior and climb the bigger North Shore rivers to spawn.
Source: the sources below.
Rules and eating
Check the rules before you keep fish. Each lake page shows the regulations that apply there, and the Minnesota DNR fishing regulations page is the official source. Before eating fish from a particular lake, check the Minnesota Department of Health’s fish consumption guidance.
All 47 lakes with rainbow trout
Show every lake, by county
Becker County 2
Beltrami County 1
Benton County 1
Carlton County 2
Cass County 5
Cedar Lake, Diamond Lake, Hazel Lake, Little Andrus Lake, Long Lake
Clearwater County 2
Cook County 2
Crow Wing County 8
Allen Lake, Huntington Mine, Mahnomen, Alstead & Arco Lake, Pennington Mine, Pleasant Lake, Portsmouth Mine, Sagamore Mine, Yawkey Mine
Dakota County 1
Hennepin County 3
Christmas Lake, North Little Long Lake, South Little Long Lake
Hubbard County 4
Lake County 5
Bean Lake, Divide Lake, Echo Lake, Glacier Pond 1, Jouppi Lake
Meeker County 1
Pine County 1
St. Louis County 6
Camp A Lake, Clearwater Lake, Cub Lake, High Lake, Sabin Lake (Embarrass Mine), Sand Lake
Stearns County 2
Todd County 1
Sources
- Minnesota DNR: Trout
- Minnesota DNR Fishing in the Neighborhood: Target species
- Minnesota DNR MinnAqua: Fishes of Minnesota and fish family facts (PDF)
- Minnesota DNR MinnAqua: Minnesota Fish Watch (PDF)
- Minnesota DNR: North Shore fishing (trout and salmon identification)
- Minnesota DNR: Fish species classification for the lake index of biological integrity (native and non-native species)
- Minnesota DNR lake surveys (LakeFinder) — lake records, stocking and survey catch rates. Minnesota DNR contributed to this work.
- Minnesota DNR state record fish (certified and non-certified weight lists; angler names are not reproduced here)