Lax Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Lax Lake grades a B, with clarity at 9.4 ft and 18 µg/L of phosphorus placing it above the Minnesota median. The lake's weakest score is on Secchi depth — the water looks more turbid than its phosphorus number alone would predict.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Lax Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. A maximum depth of 35 ft puts Lax Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. The lake's 295 acres and 3.9 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Among the 142 graded lakes in Lake County, Lax Lake sits at rank 52, above the county median.

No invasive species are currently listed at Lax Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. Walleye are documented at Lax Lake, one of 9 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Lax Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been logged at Lax 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.