Fourth Crow Wing Lake

Fourth Crow Wing Lake carries a solid B grade — strong on most parameters, with measurements that hold up well across the summer season. 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 sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. At only 10 ft deep, Fourth Crow Wing Lake is shallow — wind keeps the water column mixed and sediment resuspension drives phosphorus levels harder to manage. The lake's 434 acres and 4.8 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Fourth Crow Wing Lake ranks 67 of 77 in Hubbard County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Fourth Crow Wing Lake has at least one documented invasive species (faucet snail), so boaters and anglers should observe clean-drain-dry steps when leaving the lake. Walleye are documented at Fourth Crow Wing Lake, one of 16 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.