Henderson Lake

Henderson Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Kandiyohi County. 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.

Trophically, Henderson Lake reads as oligotrophic — nutrient-poor, clear, and ecologically more sensitive to disturbance than richer lakes. Henderson Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 57 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. Henderson Lake is small — 75 acres alongside 1.5 miles of shoreline — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Within Kandiyohi County's 35 graded waters, Henderson Lake sits at rank 4, near the top of the local distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Henderson Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. Walleye are documented at Henderson Lake, one of 10 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Henderson Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 7 times at Henderson Lake, with a median around Apr 13. 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.