Little Tuttle Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric Little Tuttle Lake fails the cutoffs — a TSI of 77 and persistent algal pressure put it in the bottom tier.

A TSI above 70 puts Little Tuttle Lake in hypereutrophic territory: visible blooms are common, and clarity rarely climbs even in early summer. At only 7 ft deep, Little Tuttle Lake is shallow — wind keeps the water column mixed and sediment resuspension drives phosphorus levels harder to manage. Little Tuttle Lake covers 639 acres alongside 4.6 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Within the 7 graded lakes of Martin County, Little Tuttle Lake sits at rank 7, near the bottom of the county list.

Little Tuttle Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2022, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Little Tuttle Lake, one of 20 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The lake has a partial ice record — 7 observed ice-outs, centered near Mar 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.