Caribou Lake

Caribou Lake sits at a C on the grading scale — not impaired, not pristine, with summer measurements that vary year to year.

A TSI near 47 places Caribou Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. The lake bottoms out at 26 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Caribou Lake covers 246 acres alongside 7.6 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Within Cook County's 128 graded lakes, Caribou Lake ranks 76 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

Caribou Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2020, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Caribou 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. 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.