Muskrat Lake

Muskrat 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. A maximum depth of 18 ft puts Muskrat Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. The lake is compact at 69 acres, with 2.1 miles of shoreline and little volume to buffer nutrient inputs. Within Becker County's 93 graded lakes, Muskrat Lake ranks 52 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

Zebra mussel presence at Muskrat 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 12 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. No formal public access is documented at Muskrat Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. 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.