Little Sauk Lake

Little Sauk Lake pulls a D on the LakeGrade rubric — phosphorus loading and limited clarity hold it below the Minnesota average. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

A TSI in the eutrophic range signals a lake doing what nutrient-loaded waters do — supporting an active algal community at the cost of clear water. Little Sauk Lake reaches 29 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. Little Sauk Lake covers 277 acres alongside 4.0 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Little Sauk Lake ranks 16 of 17 in Todd County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Little Sauk 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 17 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Little Sauk Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 7 times at Little Sauk 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.