Ponto Lake is a lake located north and east of

Backus, Minnesota Backus is a city in Cass County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 250 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Brainerd Micropolitan Statistical Area. History A post office called Backus has been in operation since 1896. The city was ...

. A public access is located on the southeast shore just north of State Highway 84. The

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, or Minnesota DNR, is the agency of the U.S. state of Minnesota charged with conserving and managing the state's natural resources. The agency maintains areas such as state parks, state forests, recre ...

(MNDNR) has classified Minnesota's lakes into 43 different classes based on physical, chemical and other characteristics. Ponto Lake is in Lake Class 23; lakes in this class generally have hard water, are very deep and clear, and have a low amount of lake area less than 15 feet deep. This lake is managed primarily for

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

and

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus '' Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are known simply as a ...

and secondarily for

bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or "copper nose" as is common in Texas, is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and ...

black crappie The black crappie (''Pomoxis nigromaculatus'') is a freshwater fish found in North America, one of the two types of crappies. It is very similar to the white crappie in size, shape, and habits, except that it is darker, with a pattern of black sp ...

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, but ...

, and

yellow perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Samu ...

. Ponto Lake has an abundant population of naturally reproducing walleye. The average length of these walleye was , and the largest sampled was . Northern pike were also abundant, averaged about long, and had a maximum length of . Ponto Lake has a good population of largemouth bass, and fish up to were sampled. Bluegill, black crappie and yellow perch are available for anglers, however numbers sampled in the 2002 assessment were low.

References

Minnesota DNR Lake Information
Lakes of Minnesota Lakes of Cass County, Minnesota {{CassCountyMN-geo-stub