West Leaf Lake

West Leaf Lake carries a solid B grade — strong on most parameters, with measurements that hold up well across the summer season. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. The lake's 55 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. At 700 acres, West Leaf Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 6.9 miles of shoreline. Within the 97 graded lakes of Otter Tail County, West Leaf Lake sits at rank 73, near the bottom of the county list.

Zebra mussel presence at West Leaf Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 18 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. 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.