Crystal Lake

Crystal Lake sits at a C on the grading scale — not impaired, not pristine, with summer measurements that vary year to year.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. A maximum depth of 37 ft puts Crystal Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. The lake's 293 acres and 6.1 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Crystal Lake ranks 14 of 36 in Dakota County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

Eurasian watermilfoil has been documented at Crystal Lake, requiring shoreline management to keep dense mats from crowding native vegetation. Crystal Lake's fishery is anchored by muskellunge, with 13 documented species in total — a destination water for muskie anglers. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The lake has a long ice-out record — 46 observations on file, with a median ice-out around Apr 5. 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.