Cotton Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Cotton Lake grades a B, with clarity at 11.5 ft and phosphorus readings still being added placing it above the Minnesota median. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. The lake bottoms out at 28 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Cotton Lake covers 1,763 acres alongside 10.9 miles of shoreline, large enough that conditions can vary meaningfully between bays. Cotton Lake ranks 38 of 93 in Becker County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

Cotton Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2024, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Cotton Lake, one of 15 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Cotton Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 23 times at Cotton Lake, with a median around Apr 23. 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.