Gillett Lake

Gillett 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. Gillett Lake reaches 49 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. Gillett Lake is small — 44 acres alongside 1.6 miles of shoreline — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Among the 77 graded lakes in Hubbard County, Gillett Lake sits at rank 27, above the county median.

No invasive species are currently listed at Gillett Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The fishery is bass-led, with 7 documented species across the lake's records. No formal public access is documented at Gillett Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. Ice-out has been recorded 10 times at Gillett Lake, with a median around Apr 18. 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.