Maple Lake

Maple Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Douglas County. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. Maple Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 78 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. The lake's 831 acres and 9.1 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Maple Lake ranks 15 of 51 in Douglas County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

Maple 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. Walleye are documented at Maple Lake, one of 17 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Maple Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. The lake has a partial ice record — 18 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 19. 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.