Blue Lake

Blue Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI value of 35 puts Blue Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. Blue Lake reaches 48 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. Blue Lake covers 177 acres alongside 2.3 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Within Crow Wing County's 120 graded waters, Blue Lake sits at rank 7, near the top of the local distribution.

Blue Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2024, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Blue Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. Ice-out has been recorded 5 times at Blue Lake, with a median around Apr 12. 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.