Dead Horse Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Dead Horse Lake grades a B, with clarity at 9.8 ft and 21 µg/L of phosphorus placing it above the Minnesota median. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI near 46 places Dead Horse Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. A maximum depth of 30 ft puts Dead Horse Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. At 105 acres, Dead Horse Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 1.9 miles of shoreline. Dead Horse Lake sits at rank 97 of 141 in Itasca County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

Dead Horse 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 Dead Horse Lake, one of 6 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.