Mud Lake

Mud Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. With clarity and phosphorus scored, the sub-grades cluster within a letter of each other, pointing to stable conditions rather than one specific stressor.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. Mud Lake reaches 34 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. At 1,178 acres, Mud Lake is one of the larger lakes in Becker County, with 9.7 miles of shoreline supporting multiple distinct use patterns. Among the 93 graded lakes in Becker County, Mud Lake sits at rank 36, above the county median.

Zebra mussel presence at Mud Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. The fishery includes walleye among the lake's 16 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. Ice-out has been recorded 24 times at Mud Lake, with a median around Apr 24. 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.