Bass Lake

Bass Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Oconto County. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI value of 37 puts Bass Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. The lake bottoms out at 25 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Bass Lake is small — 16 acres alongside partial shoreline records — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Among the 66 graded lakes in Oconto County, Bass Lake ranks 9 — in the top quartile locally.

Bass Lake has at least one documented invasive species (Chinese Mystery Snail), so boaters and anglers should observe clean-drain-dry steps when leaving the lake. Bass fishing is part of the appeal: the species list runs to 2, anchored by largemouth and/or smallmouth bass. 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.