Bello Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric, Bello Lake pulls an A: clarity at 13.1 ft and 17 µg/L of phosphorus put it in the top bracket for Minnesota. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI near 43 places Bello Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. Bello Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 58 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. Bello Lake covers 527 acres alongside 8.5 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Among the 141 graded lakes in Itasca County, Bello Lake sits at rank 50, above the county median.

No invasive species are currently listed at Bello Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The fishery is bass-led, with 12 documented species across the lake's records. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The lake has a partial ice record — 7 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 19. 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.