Crookneck Lake

Crookneck 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 46 places Crookneck Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. Crookneck Lake reaches 22 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. At 191 acres, Crookneck Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 2.8 miles of shoreline. Among the 16 graded lakes in Morrison County, Crookneck Lake sits at rank 7, above the county median.

Crookneck Lake is on the Minnesota infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. Walleye are documented at Crookneck Lake, one of 13 fish species on record for the lake. 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.