Mccarron Lake

Mccarron Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Mccarron Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. At 57 ft of maximum depth, Mccarron Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. At 73 acres, Mccarron Lake sits below the Minnesota median: a small water where shoreline activity has an outsized effect on water quality. Mccarron Lake ranks 3 of 49 in Ramsey County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

Mccarron 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. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 13 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Mccarron Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 24 times at Mccarron Lake, with a median around Apr 5. 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.