Bass Lake

Bass Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Barron County. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

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 39 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. At 20 acres, Bass Lake sits below the Wisconsin median: a small water where shoreline activity has an outsized effect on water quality. Within Barron County's 38 graded waters, Bass Lake sits at rank 3, near the top of the local distribution.

No invasive species are currently listed at Bass Lake — the lake remains off the Wisconsin infested-waters roster. The fishery is bass-led, with 3 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.