Little Birch Lake

Little Birch Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Todd County. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI near 42 places Little Birch Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. The lake's 89 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. At 839 acres, Little Birch Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 8.6 miles of shoreline. Little Birch Lake ranks 2 of 17 in Todd County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

Zebra mussel presence at Little Birch Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 20 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Little Birch Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 16 times at Little Birch Lake, with a median around Apr 15. 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.