Ann Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Ann Lake grades a B, with clarity at 9.2 ft and 28 µg/L of phosphorus placing it above the Minnesota median. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. A maximum depth of 45 ft puts Ann Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. The lake's 116 acres and 1.7 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Within Carver County's 40 graded waters, Ann Lake sits at rank 9, near the top of the local distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Ann Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. The fishery is bass-led, with 11 documented species across the lake's records. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. Monitoring depth is thin here: the LakeGrade rubric is applied to a small number of sample years, and the grade will be revised as more data accumulates.