Fairy Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Fairy Lake grades a B, with clarity at 14.2 ft and phosphorus readings still being added placing it above the Minnesota median. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

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 37 ft puts Fairy Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. Fairy Lake covers 307 acres alongside 4.2 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Among the 17 graded lakes in Todd County, Fairy Lake sits at rank 8, above the county median.

Fairy 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 Fairy Lake, one of 13 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Fairy Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. The lake has a long ice-out record — 47 observations on file, with a median ice-out around Apr 15. 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.