Gorman Lake

Gorman Lake pulls a D on the LakeGrade rubric — phosphorus loading and limited clarity hold it below the Minnesota average. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

Hypereutrophic conditions mean the lake is operating at the upper end of the productivity scale, with all the bloom risk that implies. A maximum depth of just 14 ft means sediment-bound phosphorus releases back into the water column whenever wind stirs the bottom — a classic shallow-lake dynamic. The lake's 521 acres and 4.9 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Within Le Sueur County's 16 graded lakes, Gorman Lake ranks 12 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

No invasive species are currently listed at Gorman Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. Walleye are documented at Gorman Lake, one of 16 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Gorman Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. 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.