Elk Lake

Elk Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Clearwater County. 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 Elk Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. The lake's 93 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. Elk Lake covers 303 acres alongside 3.9 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Among the 40 graded lakes in Clearwater County, Elk Lake sits at rank 14, above the county median.

Elk Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2024, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Muskie are on the species list at Elk Lake, alongside the lake's 16 other documented fish. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. Ice-out has been logged at Elk Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 19 — a useful baseline for tracking climate trends. 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.