Eagle Lake

Eagle Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. 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.

The lake's low TSI puts it in oligotrophic territory — the cleanest of the four trophic classes, but also the most vulnerable to nutrient-driven shifts. A maximum depth of 46 ft puts Eagle Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. The lake's 907 acres and 4.5 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Within Otter Tail County's 97 graded waters, Eagle Lake sits at rank 4, near the top of the local distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Eagle Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 10 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Eagle Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. The lake has a partial ice record — 17 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 16. 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.