Bass Lake

Bass Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. 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.

A TSI near 44 places Bass Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. The lake bottoms out at 27 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake's 732 acres and 6.3 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Among the 120 graded lakes in Crow Wing County, Bass Lake sits at rank 55, above the county median.

Bass Lake carries an invasive watermilfoil record — boat-launch decontamination and shoreline care matter more here than at uninfested lakes. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 14 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Bass Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been logged at Bass Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 16 — a useful baseline for tracking climate trends. 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.