Split Hand Lake

Split Hand Lake earns a C — middle-of-the-pack water quality, with one or two parameters dragging the average down from a stronger grade. The lake's weakest score is on Secchi depth — the water looks more turbid than its phosphorus number alone would predict.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. A maximum depth of 34 ft puts Split Hand Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. Split Hand Lake covers 1,374 acres alongside 7.3 miles of shoreline, large enough that conditions can vary meaningfully between bays. Split Hand Lake ranks 111 of 141 in Itasca County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

No invasive species are currently listed at Split Hand Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. Walleye are documented at Split Hand Lake, one of 17 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. Ice-out has been recorded 16 times at Split Hand 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.