Little Pine Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Little Pine Lake grades a B, with clarity at 9.5 ft and 26 µg/L of phosphorus placing it above the Minnesota median. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

A TSI near 48 places Little Pine Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. Little Pine Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 63 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. Little Pine Lake covers 2,080 acres alongside 7.3 miles of shoreline, large enough that conditions can vary meaningfully between bays. Within Otter Tail County's 97 graded lakes, Little Pine Lake ranks 68 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

Little Pine 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 alongside the lake's other 20 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The lake has a partial ice record — 15 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 20. 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.