Jessie Lake

The LakeGrade rubric puts Jessie Lake at a C: clarity at 6.8 ft, 41 µg/L of phosphorus, and a TSI of 54 signal an intermediate trophic state. The two scored sub-grades — clarity and phosphorus — track close together, so neither one is dragging the average down.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. A maximum depth of 26 ft puts Jessie Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. Jessie Lake covers 110 acres alongside 3.3 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Jessie Lake sits at rank 37 of 51 in Douglas County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Jessie Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. Walleye are documented at Jessie Lake, one of 15 fish species on record for the lake. No formal public access is documented at Jessie Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. Ice-out has been recorded 13 times at Jessie Lake, with a median around Apr 11. 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.