Wine Lake

Wine Lake sits at a C on the grading scale — not impaired, not pristine, with summer measurements that vary year to year. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. The lake's 61 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. At 415 acres, Wine Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 6.4 miles of shoreline. Wine Lake ranks 84 of 93 in Becker County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Wine 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 alongside the lake's other 16 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Wine Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. The lake has a long ice-out record — 80 observations on file, with a median ice-out around Apr 19. 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.