Placid Lake

Placid Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. 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.

A TSI value of 38 puts Placid Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. The lake bottoms out at 39 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake's 183 acres and 4.7 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Among the 120 graded lakes in Crow Wing County, Placid Lake ranks 27 — in the top quartile locally.

No invasive species are currently listed at Placid Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Placid 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. Ice-out has been recorded 9 times at Placid Lake, with a median around Apr 17. 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.