Medicine Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Medicine Lake grades a B, with clarity at 7.9 ft and 22 µg/L of phosphorus placing it above the Minnesota median. 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.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Medicine Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. A maximum depth of 44 ft puts Medicine Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. Medicine Lake covers 461 acres alongside 4.3 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Medicine Lake sits at rank 61 of 86 in Beltrami County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

Medicine 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 Medicine Lake, one of 12 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Medicine Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. 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.