Child Lake

Child Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. The two scored sub-grades — clarity and phosphorus — track close together, so neither one is dragging the average down.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. Child Lake reaches 29 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. Child Lake covers 285 acres alongside 4.6 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Among the 132 graded lakes in Cass County, Child Lake sits at rank 61, above the county median.

No invasive species are currently listed at Child Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. Muskie are on the species list at Child Lake, among the lake's 17 documented fish. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The lake has a partial ice record — 5 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 13. 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.