Auburn Lake

Auburn Lake sits at the top of the Wisconsin DNR grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Wisconsin. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Wisconsin lakes fall. The lake bottoms out at 29 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. At 90 acres, Auburn Lake sits below the Wisconsin median: a small water where shoreline activity has an outsized effect on water quality. Among the 10 graded lakes in Fond du Lac County, Auburn Lake sits at rank 5, above the county median.

Zebra mussels have been documented at Auburn Lake, which alters the filter-feeding balance and can paradoxically increase water clarity while disrupting the food web. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 4 documented species — a notable draw for Wisconsin anglers. A documented public access point at Auburn Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. 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.