Moose Lake

Moose Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. The lake's 67 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. The lake's 133 acres and 2.2 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 33 graded lakes in Carlton County, Moose Lake ranks 6 — in the top quartile locally.

No invasive species are currently listed at Moose Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. Walleye are documented at Moose Lake, one of 10 fish species on record for the lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. Ice-out has been recorded 11 times at Moose Lake, with a median around Apr 20. 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.