Clear Lake

Clear Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

A TSI near 43 places Clear Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. The lake bottoms out at 24 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake's 113 acres and 3.1 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Among the 187 graded lakes in St. Louis County, Clear Lake sits at rank 53, above the county median.

Clear Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2023, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Clear Lake, one of 9 fish species on record for the lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. The lake has a partial ice record — 11 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 26. 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.