Kabetogama Lake

On the scoring rubric Kabetogama Lake grades a D: clarity at 3.8 ft and phosphorus readings still being added keep it in the lower bracket for St. Louis County.

A TSI in the eutrophic range signals a lake doing what nutrient-loaded waters do — supporting an active algal community at the cost of clear water. At 80 ft of maximum depth, Kabetogama Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. Kabetogama Lake covers 24,034 acres alongside 190.5 miles of shoreline, large enough that conditions can vary meaningfully between bays. Kabetogama Lake ranks 145 of 187 in St. Louis County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Kabetogama Lake is on the Minnesota infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. The fishery includes walleye among the lake's 16 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Kabetogama Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been logged at Kabetogama Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 29 — a useful baseline for tracking climate trends. 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.