Scalp Lake

Scalp Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Otter Tail County. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

The lake's low TSI puts it in oligotrophic territory — the cleanest of the four trophic classes, but also the most vulnerable to nutrient-driven shifts. At 90 ft of maximum depth, Scalp Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. At 254 acres, Scalp Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 2.6 miles of shoreline. Scalp Lake ranks 15 of 97 in Otter Tail County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

Scalp Lake is on the Minnesota infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. Walleye are documented at Scalp Lake, one of 13 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Scalp Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been recorded 17 times at Scalp Lake, with a median around Apr 20. 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.