Maple Lake

The LakeGrade rubric puts Maple Lake at a C: clarity at 6.0 ft, 51 µg/L of phosphorus, and a TSI of 56 signal an intermediate trophic state. With clarity and phosphorus scored, the sub-grades cluster within a letter of each other, pointing to stable conditions rather than one specific stressor.

At a TSI of 56, Maple Lake reads as eutrophic — nutrient-rich enough that summer algal growth and reduced clarity are expected, not unusual. The lake bottoms out at 23 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Maple Lake covers 388 acres alongside 3.6 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Maple Lake ranks 14 of 17 in Todd County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Maple Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2024, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Maple 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. The lake has a partial ice record — 19 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 17. 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.