Mud Lake

Mud Lake earns an F: 166 µg/L of phosphorus and clarity at 3.0 ft signal heavy nutrient loading from the surrounding watershed. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. Mud Lake reaches 20 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. The lake's 161 acres and 1.9 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Mud Lake ranks 48 of 55 in Stearns County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Mud Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2023, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Mud Lake, one of 16 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. 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.