Bass Lake

Bass Lake sits at the top of the Wisconsin DNR grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Wisconsin. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

A TSI value of 30 puts Bass Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. Bass Lake reaches 31 ft at its deepest point — typical for Wisconsin mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. The lake's 132 acres and partial shoreline records put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Among the 48 graded lakes in Washburn County, Bass Lake ranks 6 — in the top quartile locally.

An invasive species record — Chinese Mystery Snail — has been logged at Bass Lake; Wisconsin DNR maintains the official infested-waters list. Walleye are documented at Bass Lake, one of 4 fish species on record for the lake. 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.