Big Portage (W Bay Lake

Big Portage (W Bay Lake carries a solid B grade — strong on most parameters, with measurements that hold up well across the summer season. Clarity is the limiting factor — phosphorus is reasonable but suspended particles or algal cells keep water transparency below Minnesota norms.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Big Portage (W Bay Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. Big Portage (W Bay Lake reaches 23 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. The lake's 902 acres and 7.2 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Big Portage (W Bay Lake ranks 100 of 132 in Cass County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Big Portage (W Bay Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2025, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Big Portage (W Bay Lake, one of 13 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. 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.