Tofte Lake

Tofte Lake earns an A — every scored parameter (clarity) rates among the best monitored waters in Lake County.

Trophically, Tofte Lake reads as oligotrophic — nutrient-poor, clear, and ecologically more sensitive to disturbance than richer lakes. At 73 ft of maximum depth, Tofte Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. The lake's 134 acres and 4.2 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Within Lake County's 142 graded waters, Tofte Lake sits at rank 5, near the top of the local distribution.

Tofte Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2023, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The lake's fish records list 3 species — a varied community without one dominant gamefish. 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.