Gun Lake

Gun Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. 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. Gun Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 57 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. At 341 acres, Gun Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 6.7 miles of shoreline. Among the 187 graded lakes in St. Louis County, Gun Lake sits at rank 66, above the county median.

Gun Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2022, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Gun Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. No formal public access is documented at Gun Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. 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.