Cass Lake Pike Bay

Cass Lake Pike Bay sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. At 95 ft of maximum depth, Cass Lake Pike Bay stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. At 4,756 acres, Cass Lake Pike Bay is one of the larger lakes in Cass County, with 11.0 miles of shoreline supporting multiple distinct use patterns. Within Cass County's 132 graded lakes, Cass Lake Pike Bay ranks 80 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

Zebra mussels have been documented at Cass Lake Pike Bay, which alters the filter-feeding balance and can paradoxically increase water clarity while disrupting the food web. Cass Lake Pike Bay's fishery is anchored by muskellunge, with 20 documented species in total — a destination water for muskie anglers. A documented public access point at Cass Lake Pike Bay makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 7 times at Cass Lake Pike Bay, with a median around Apr 25. 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.