Cramer Lake

Cramer Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Cramer Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. At only 4 ft deep, Cramer Lake is shallow — wind keeps the water column mixed and sediment resuspension drives phosphorus levels harder to manage. At 68 acres, Cramer Lake sits below the Minnesota median: a small water where shoreline activity has an outsized effect on water quality. Among the 142 graded lakes in Lake County, Cramer Lake ranks 28 — in the top quartile locally.

Cramer Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2024, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The lake's fish records list 5 species — a varied community without one dominant gamefish. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. 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.