Bear Head Lake

Bear Head 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.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. The lake bottoms out at 46 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Bear Head Lake covers 662 acres alongside 12.1 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Within St. Louis County's 187 graded waters, Bear Head Lake sits at rank 44, near the top of the local distribution.

No invasive species are currently listed at Bear Head Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 9 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Bear Head Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 24 times at Bear Head Lake, with a median around Apr 26. 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.