Gilmore Lake

Gilmore Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI value of 35 puts Gilmore Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. At 54 ft of maximum depth, Gilmore Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. At 93 acres, Gilmore Lake sits below the Minnesota median: a small water where shoreline activity has an outsized effect on water quality. Within Hubbard County's 77 graded waters, Gilmore Lake sits at rank 14, near the top of the local distribution.

Gilmore 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 Gilmore Lake, one of 11 fish species on record for the lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. The lake has a partial ice record — 20 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 24. 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.