Black Hawk Lake

Black Hawk 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.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Wisconsin lakes fall. A maximum depth of 42 ft puts Black Hawk Lake in the middle of Wisconsin's depth distribution. Black Hawk Lake covers 212 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Black Hawk Lake ranks 1 of 6 in Iowa County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

Black Hawk Lake carries an invasive watermilfoil record — boat-launch decontamination and shoreline care matter more here than at uninfested lakes. Walleye are documented at Black Hawk Lake, one of 4 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Black Hawk Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. 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.