Young Lake

Young Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. The two scored sub-grades — clarity and phosphorus — track close together, so neither one is dragging the average down.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Minnesota lakes fall. The lake bottoms out at 21 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Young Lake is small — 67 acres alongside 1.7 miles of shoreline — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Within Crow Wing County's 120 graded lakes, Young Lake ranks 72 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

No invasive species are currently listed at Young Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Young Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. 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.