Tamarac Lake

Tamarac Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. With clarity and phosphorus scored, the sub-grades cluster within a letter of each other, pointing to stable conditions rather than one specific stressor.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Tamarac Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. A maximum depth of 34 ft puts Tamarac Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. With 1,178 acres of surface and 9.7 miles of shoreline, Tamarac Lake is a large water by Minnesota standards — recreational pressure is spread across a long shoreline. Within Becker County's 93 graded lakes, Tamarac Lake ranks 60 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

Zebra mussel presence at Tamarac Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. The fishery includes walleye among the lake's 16 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The lake has a partial ice record — 24 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 24. 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.