Becker Lake

Becker Lake pulls a D on the LakeGrade rubric — phosphorus loading and limited clarity hold it below the Minnesota average. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. Becker Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 120 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. Becker Lake covers 1,989 acres alongside 13.7 miles of shoreline, large enough that conditions can vary meaningfully between bays. Within the 93 graded lakes of Becker County, Becker Lake sits at rank 88, near the bottom of the county list.

Zebra mussels have been documented at Becker Lake, which alters the filter-feeding balance and can paradoxically increase water clarity while disrupting the food web. Walleye are documented at Becker Lake, one of 17 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. Ice-out has been recorded 16 times at Becker Lake, with a median around Apr 21. 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.