Owl Lake

Owl Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI value of 38 puts Owl Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. Owl Lake reaches 26 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. Owl Lake is small — 90 acres alongside 2.3 miles of shoreline — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Owl Lake ranks 15 of 77 in Hubbard County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

Owl Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2024, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. 4 fish species are documented at Owl Lake, a mixed warm-water community typical for Minnesota lakes of this size. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. Ice-out has been recorded 23 times at Owl Lake, with a median around Apr 15. 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.