Round Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Round Lake grades a B, with clarity at 7.9 ft and 22 µg/L of phosphorus placing it above the Minnesota median. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. Round Lake reaches 36 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. The lake's 273 acres and 2.4 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Round Lake sits at rank 65 of 97 in Otter Tail County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

Zebra mussels have been documented at Round Lake, which alters the filter-feeding balance and can paradoxically increase water clarity while disrupting the food web. Walleye are documented at Round Lake, one of 13 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. 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.