Davis Lake

Davis Lake earns a C — middle-of-the-pack water quality, with one or two parameters dragging the average down from a stronger grade. 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.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Davis Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. The lake's 64 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. Davis Lake covers 323 acres alongside 10.5 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Davis Lake sits at rank 82 of 128 in Cook County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

No invasive species are currently listed at Davis Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Davis Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. 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.