Round Grove Lake

On the scoring rubric Round Grove Lake grades a D: clarity at 2.3 ft and 81 µg/L of phosphorus keep it in the lower bracket for McLeod County. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. A maximum depth of just 7 ft means sediment-bound phosphorus releases back into the water column whenever wind stirs the bottom — a classic shallow-lake dynamic. Round Grove Lake covers 296 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. Round Grove Lake ranks 5 of 6 in McLeod County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Round Grove Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2025, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Round Grove Lake, one of 7 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Round Grove Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. 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.