Pleasant Lake

Pleasant Lake carries a solid B grade — strong on most parameters, with measurements that hold up well across the summer season. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

A TSI near 40 places Pleasant Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. The lake bottoms out at 33 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. At 218 acres, Pleasant Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 3.5 miles of shoreline. Among the 55 graded lakes in Stearns County, Pleasant Lake sits at rank 17, above the county median.

No invasive species are currently listed at Pleasant Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The fishery is bass-led, with 10 documented species across the lake's records. A documented public access point at Pleasant Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 7 times at Pleasant Lake, with a median around Apr 11. 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.