Middle Cormorant Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric, Middle Cormorant Lake pulls an A: clarity at 15.1 ft and 13 µg/L of phosphorus put it in the top bracket for Minnesota. With clarity and phosphorus scored, the sub-grades cluster within a letter of each other, pointing to stable conditions rather than one specific stressor.

Trophically, Middle Cormorant Lake reads as oligotrophic — nutrient-poor, clear, and ecologically more sensitive to disturbance than richer lakes. The lake bottoms out at 40 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake's 373 acres and 3.6 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Among the 93 graded lakes in Becker County, Middle Cormorant Lake ranks 8 — in the top quartile locally.

Zebra mussels have been documented at Middle Cormorant Lake, which alters the filter-feeding balance and can paradoxically increase water clarity while disrupting the food web. Walleye are documented at Middle Cormorant Lake, one of 13 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. 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.