West Mcdonald Lake

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

A TSI value of 37 puts West Mcdonald Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. At 62 ft of maximum depth, West Mcdonald Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. West Mcdonald Lake covers 597 acres alongside 4.7 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Among the 97 graded lakes in Otter Tail County, West Mcdonald Lake ranks 24 — in the top quartile locally.

West Mcdonald Lake is on the Minnesota infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. The fishery includes walleye among the lake's 15 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at West Mcdonald Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. The lake has a long ice-out record — 47 observations on file, with a median ice-out 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.