Augustine Lake

On the LakeGrade scale Augustine Lake grades a B, with clarity at 13.9 ft and phosphorus readings still being added placing it above the Wisconsin median. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

A TSI value of 39 puts Augustine Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. A maximum depth of just 10 ft means sediment-bound phosphorus releases back into the water column whenever wind stirs the bottom — a classic shallow-lake dynamic. Augustine Lake covers 171 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Augustine Lake ranks 8 of 10 in Ashland County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

An invasive species record — Purple Loosestrife — has been logged at Augustine Lake; Wisconsin DNR maintains the official infested-waters list. The fishery is bass-led, with 4 documented species across the lake's records. Public access is available — the lake is on the Wisconsin DNR public-access list. 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.