Snaptail Lake

Snaptail Lake earns a C — middle-of-the-pack water quality, with one or two parameters dragging the average down from a stronger grade.

A TSI near 45 places Snaptail Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. At 70 ft of maximum depth, Snaptail Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. At 175 acres, Snaptail Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 3.2 miles of shoreline. Snaptail Lake ranks 110 of 141 in Itasca County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Snaptail Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2023, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The fishery includes walleye among the lake's 8 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. Ice-out has been logged at Snaptail Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 14 — 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.