Miltona Lake

Miltona Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Douglas County. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI value of 40 puts Miltona Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. The lake's 105 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. At 5,731 acres, Miltona Lake is one of the larger lakes in Douglas County, with 17.5 miles of shoreline supporting multiple distinct use patterns. Among the 51 graded lakes in Douglas County, Miltona Lake ranks 5 — in the top quartile locally.

Zebra mussels have been documented at Miltona Lake, which alters the filter-feeding balance and can paradoxically increase water clarity while disrupting the food web. Muskie are on the species list at Miltona Lake, alongside the lake's 19 other documented fish. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. Ice-out has been logged at Miltona Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 14 — a useful baseline for tracking climate trends. 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.