Mink Lake

How big is Mink Lake?

How deep is Mink Lake?

What kind of fish can you catch in Mink Lake?

Are there boat launches on Mink Lake?

Are there places to eat and drink near Mink Lake?

This assessment was done in cooperation with Cook County water planning staff, as part of a water quality study on Mink, Kimball, and Boys Lakes. It was also done to monitor performance of stocked trout and to determine the effects of yellow perch and rock bass on that performance.

Yellow perch and rock bass are rarely found in stream trout lakes in this area. Yellow perch were apparently very abundant in Mink Lake in 2013, while rock bass may have just found their way into the lake from Kimball Lake, where they were first seen in 2009. The yellow perch gill net catch was far above the normal range for this lake type, but very few of the yellow perch seen in 2013 would have been large enough to have been of interest to anglers. No rock bass were taken in gill net sets, but one 4.5-inch fish was taken in 0.25-in-mesh trap nets used in this assessment.

Yellow perch and rock bass will compete with trout for forage, and will likely cause trout growth rates to decline. The rainbow trout fishery in Mink Lake is essentially a put-and-take fishery, and slow growth would not be a serious problem, as long as fish can maintain their condition over the summer. The splake fishery, however, is dependent on growth in the lake over at least one growing season to provide the catchable-sized fish that stocking is intended to produce. Experience in this and other area lakes suggests that splake do not thrive in the presence of large numbers of yellow perch.

The rainbow trout gill net catch was was just within the normal range (1.0-6.5 fish/net) for catches in fall assessments of stream trout lakes in this area. The mean weight for rainbow trout taken in gill nets was low compared to means usually seen in fall catches in this area. All three rainbow trout taken in this assessment were one-year-old fish from the 2013 yearling stocking. Their growth since they were stocked appeared to have been poor. Rainbow trout yearlings stocked in the spring of 2013 had an average weight of 0.37 pounds per fish, compared to an average of 0.48 pounds per fish for one-year-old fish collected in the late-September assessment. In other stream trout lakes in this area, stocked yearlings have been known to double their weight over the course of a single summer.

The only brown trout collected was a survivor from a 2009 fingerling stocking in Kimball Lake. Growth of that fish had been about average for the area. Brown trout would have been uncommon in Mink Lake, but would have been some of the larger trout available to anglers.

The splake gill net catch was low for this lake historically, and fell below the normal range (2.8 - 14.3 fish/net) for catches in fall assessments of area stream trout lakes. Splake taken in gill nets were small; their mean weight was also below normal. Most of the splake in Mink Lake in 2013 may have been too small to have been taken in standard gill nets. Quarter-inch-mesh trap nets captured fairly high numbers of small splake under 8.5 inches in length. Those small splake were apparently one-year-old fish from the 2012 fingerling stocking, and had grown only two inches over the 2013 growing season. Few had reached a catchable size by the end of September. The survey crew reported that larger splake collected in this assessment were skinny, and in poor condition. It is likely that competition from high numbers of yellow perch and a few rock bass in this lake has severely limited splake growth.

Mink Lake is scheduled to be rehabilitated for stream trout management in the fall of 2014, with the goal of eliminating yellow perch and rock bass. All fish present at that time would be killed, and the lake would be restocked beginning in the spring of 2015.

Are there any state parks near Mink Lake?