Mill Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Mill Lake grades a B, with clarity at 8.5 ft and 16 µg/L of phosphorus placing it above the Minnesota median. Clarity is the limiting factor — phosphorus is reasonable but suspended particles or algal cells keep water transparency below Minnesota norms.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Mill Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. At only 10 ft deep, Mill Lake is shallow — wind keeps the water column mixed and sediment resuspension drives phosphorus levels harder to manage. Mill Lake covers 155 acres alongside 4.0 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Mill Lake ranks 44 of 93 in Becker County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

Zebra mussels have been documented at Mill Lake, which alters the filter-feeding balance and can paradoxically increase water clarity while disrupting the food web. Walleye are documented at Mill Lake, one of 14 fish species on record for the lake. No formal public access is documented at Mill Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. 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.