Calhoun Lake

Calhoun Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. The two scored sub-grades — clarity and phosphorus — track close together, so neither one is dragging the average down.

A TSI near 49 places Calhoun Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. At only 13 ft deep, Calhoun Lake is shallow — wind keeps the water column mixed and sediment resuspension drives phosphorus levels harder to manage. Calhoun Lake covers 647 acres alongside 4.8 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Among the 35 graded lakes in Kandiyohi County, Calhoun Lake ranks 8 — in the top quartile locally.

Calhoun Lake is on the Minnesota infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. Walleye are documented at Calhoun Lake, one of 15 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 22 times at Calhoun Lake, with a median around Apr 11. 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.