Pickeral Lake

Pickeral Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Pickeral Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. A maximum depth of 37 ft puts Pickeral Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. At 20 acres, Pickeral Lake sits below the Minnesota median: a small water where shoreline activity has an outsized effect on water quality. Among the 64 graded lakes in Wright County, Pickeral Lake sits at rank 18, above the county median.

No invasive species are currently listed at Pickeral Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Pickeral Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. 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.