Nelson Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric, Nelson Lake pulls an A: clarity at 24.6 ft and phosphorus readings still being added put it in the top bracket for Minnesota. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

The lake's low TSI puts it in oligotrophic territory — the cleanest of the four trophic classes, but also the most vulnerable to nutrient-driven shifts. The lake's maximum depth is not yet documented in state morphometric records — context for its physical structure remains limited. The lake's surface area is not consistently recorded across state datasets — physical context remains partial. Nelson Lake ranks 9 of 93 in Becker County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

Nelson Lake is on the Minnesota infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Nelson Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. No formal public access is documented at Nelson Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. The lake has a partial ice record — 15 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 16. 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.