Drewery Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Drewery Lake grades a B, with clarity at 3.5 ft and phosphorus readings still being added placing it above the Minnesota median. The lake's weakest score is on Secchi depth — the water looks more turbid than its phosphorus number alone would predict.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Drewery Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. Drewery Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 120 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. With 15,958 acres of surface and 45.4 miles of shoreline, Drewery Lake is a large water by Minnesota standards — recreational pressure is spread across a long shoreline. Drewery Lake ranks 71 of 86 in Beltrami County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Drewery Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. Drewery Lake's fishery is anchored by muskellunge, with 21 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 partial ice record — 10 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 24. 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.