Little Turtle Lake

Little Turtle 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.

At a TSI of 51, Little Turtle Lake reads as eutrophic — nutrient-rich enough that summer algal growth and reduced clarity are expected, not unusual. Little Turtle Lake reaches 29 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. The lake's 492 acres and 4.4 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Within the 141 graded lakes of Itasca County, Little Turtle Lake sits at rank 133, near the bottom of the county list.

Little Turtle Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2023, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Little Turtle Lake, one of 14 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. 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.