Big Cedar Lake Northern Basin Deep Site

Big Cedar Lake Northern Basin Deep Site carries a solid B grade — strong on most parameters, with measurements that hold up well across the summer season. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

A TSI near 47 places Big Cedar Lake Northern Basin Deep Site in the mesotrophic band — moderate productivity, with seasonal swings between clearer spring water and richer late-summer conditions. Big Cedar Lake Northern Basin Deep Site is unusually deep for Wisconsin at 105 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. Big Cedar Lake Northern Basin Deep Site covers 937 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Big Cedar Lake Northern Basin Deep Site ranks 15 of 15 in Washington County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Big Cedar Lake Northern Basin Deep Site means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 4 documented species — a notable draw for Wisconsin anglers. 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.