Bay Lake

Bay Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Crow Wing County. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

The lake's low TSI puts it in oligotrophic territory — the cleanest of the four trophic classes, but also the most vulnerable to nutrient-driven shifts. The lake's 74 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. At 2,330 acres, Bay Lake is one of the larger lakes in Crow Wing County, with 24.1 miles of shoreline supporting multiple distinct use patterns. Within Crow Wing County's 120 graded waters, Bay Lake sits at rank 21, near the top of the local distribution.

Bay Lake is on the Minnesota infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. Walleye are documented at Bay Lake, one of 13 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Bay Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 12 times at Bay Lake, with a median around Apr 18. 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.