Shagawa Lake

Shagawa Lake sits at a C on the grading scale — not impaired, not pristine, with summer measurements that vary year to year. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. Shagawa Lake reaches 48 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. With 2,345 acres of surface and 23.4 miles of shoreline, Shagawa Lake is a large water by Minnesota standards — recreational pressure is spread across a long shoreline. Within St. Louis County's 187 graded lakes, Shagawa Lake ranks 114 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

An invasive species record — spiny waterflea — has been logged at Shagawa Lake; Minnesota PCA maintains the official infested-waters list. Muskie are on the species list at Shagawa Lake, alongside the lake's 12 other documented fish. A documented public access point at Shagawa Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been logged at Shagawa Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 28 — a useful baseline for tracking climate trends. 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.