Bagley Lake

Bagley Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI near 44 places Bagley Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. A maximum depth of 39 ft puts Bagley Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. The lake is compact at 97 acres, with 2.2 miles of shoreline and little volume to buffer nutrient inputs. Among the 40 graded lakes in Clearwater County, Bagley Lake sits at rank 15, above the county median.

No invasive species are currently listed at Bagley Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. 7 fish species are on record, with panfish making up the recreational core. 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.