Minnewashta Lake

Minnewashta Lake carries a solid B grade — strong on most parameters, with measurements that hold up well across the summer season. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Minnewashta Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. The lake's 70 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. At 680 acres, Minnewashta Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 8.9 miles of shoreline. Minnewashta Lake ranks 4 of 40 in Carver County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

Zebra mussel presence at Minnewashta Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. Walleye are documented at Minnewashta Lake, one of 14 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Minnewashta Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been logged at Minnewashta Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 5 — 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.