Rivalry Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Rivalry Lake grades a B, with clarity at 10.0 ft and phosphorus readings still being added placing it above the Minnesota median. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. Rivalry Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 100 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. Rivalry Lake covers 153 acres alongside 4.3 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Within Lake County's 142 graded lakes, Rivalry Lake ranks 76 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

Rivalry Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2023, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Rivalry Lake, one of 7 fish species on record for the lake. No formal public access is documented at Rivalry Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. 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.