Whitefish Lake

Whitefish Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Beltrami County. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

A TSI near 42 places Whitefish Lake in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. The lake bottoms out at 30 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake's 128 acres and 2.7 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 Beltrami County's 95 graded waters, Whitefish Lake sits at rank 23, near the top of the local distribution.

Whitefish Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2025, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Whitefish Lake, one of 12 fish species on record for the lake. 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.