Colby Lake — like a lot of single men — knows what it’s like to be dirty, shallow and unpopular.

But now the Woodbury lake is getting a makeover. Colby will undergo a coordinated blitz this summer, designed to make it a more attractive destination for fishing and boating.

“It’s a collaboration,” said Jim Levitt, a fisheries specialist with the Fishing in the Neighborhood program of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The DNR will be working with Woodbury and the South Washington Watershed District.

To make Colby more appealing to anglers, a pier will be built. To give them something to catch, fish will be stocked and an aeration system has been installed.

To clean up the water, runoff pollution will be reduced by building rain gardens and diverting runoff from a golf course.

Levitt said well-populated areas that have the potential for greater use are chosen for the Fishing in the Neighborhood program. Playgrounds and shelters on the shore, which Colby has, are a plus.

The program’s annual budget for the metro area is $50,000. That does not include salaries, said Levitt, and it assumes plenty of help from cities, counties and watershed districts.

The program has rehabbed 60 lakes in the metro area, including the Washington County lakes Carver, Alice, Hidden Valley, Lost, Lily, Powers and Ravine.

Some need only a few extra fish, while others — like Colby — require much more.

Colby is a shallow lake, which makes it tougher for fish to survive. An aerator installed by the city and the watershed district is meant to give the fish oxygen during the winter.

Another problem is the phosphorous that runs off neighbors’ yards and driveways.

Ordinarily, phosphorous settles and sits harmlessly on the bottom of a lake.

But Colby has a problem. “That lake is infested with bullheads,” said Bob Klatt, Woodbury’s parks and recreation director.

Bullheads are bottom feeders that whip up sediment as they search for food. When the phosphorous is lifted, the water looks muddy and algae get fertilized. And when the overgrown algae die, the rotting material consumes oxygen that fish need.

This year, the DNR is adding 2,100 catfish, most of them less than 10 inches long, to eat the bullheads.

Klatt said the watershed district is paying for runoff-diversion programs that include rain gardens on the west side of the lake. The gardens trap rainwater so it can soak into the ground instead of running into the lake.

Pollution also washes in from the nearby Eagle Valley Golf Course. Woodbury has initiated a program to retain that runoff and reuse it to irrigate the golf course.

The most noticeable addition to the lake will be the $30,000 fishing pier. It will be similar to one added at Powers Lake in Woodbury.

The new pier will be built on the south end of Colby in the park at Lake Street and Edgewater Drive.

The pier will be paid for by the DNR, but the city will help install it and will add a walkway from a bike trail.

And anglers on the pier will have plenty of fish to choose from. For them, the DNR has stocked, and will continue to stock, bluegills, panfish, crappies, yellow perch and largemouth bass.

Bob Shaw can be reached at 651-228-5433. Follow him at twitter.com/BshawPP.