Little Emily Lake

Little Emily Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. 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.

A TSI near 41 places Little Emily Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. A maximum depth of 26 ft puts Little Emily Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. Little Emily Lake is small — 99 acres alongside 1.8 miles of shoreline — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Little Emily Lake sits at rank 88 of 120 in Crow Wing County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

Little Emily Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2020, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Little Emily Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. 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.