Shumway Lake

Shumway Lake pulls a D on the LakeGrade rubric — phosphorus loading and limited clarity hold it below the Minnesota average. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI in the eutrophic range signals a lake doing what nutrient-loaded waters do — supporting an active algal community at the cost of clear water. The lake bottoms out at 23 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake is compact at 74 acres, with 1.6 miles of shoreline and little volume to buffer nutrient inputs. Within the 53 graded lakes of Aitkin County, Shumway Lake sits at rank 51, near the bottom of the county list.

Shumway Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2023, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Bass fishing is part of the appeal: the species list runs to 6, anchored by largemouth and/or smallmouth bass. 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.