Wright Lake

Wright Lake comes in at a B on the grading rubric — a respectable showing for a Minnesota lake of its size and depth. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

The lake's low TSI puts it in oligotrophic territory — the cleanest of the four trophic classes, but also the most vulnerable to nutrient-driven shifts. The lake bottoms out at 32 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake is compact at 67 acres, with 2.8 miles of shoreline and little volume to buffer nutrient inputs. Wright Lake sits at rank 62 of 97 in Otter Tail County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Wright Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. Walleye are documented at Wright Lake, one of 14 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The grade is based on limited monitoring — fewer than three independent measurement years contribute, so future updates may shift the letter.