Little Saganaga Lake

The LakeGrade rubric puts Little Saganaga Lake at a C: clarity at 9.3 ft, phosphorus readings still being added, and a TSI of 45 signal an intermediate trophic state. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. Little Saganaga Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 150 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. With 1,627 acres of surface and 43.8 miles of shoreline, Little Saganaga Lake is a large water by Minnesota standards — recreational pressure is spread across a long shoreline. Within Cook County's 128 graded lakes, Little Saganaga Lake ranks 79 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

Little Saganaga Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2022, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The lake's fish records list 5 species — a varied community without one dominant gamefish. 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.