Friess Lake

Friess Lake earns a C — middle-of-the-pack water quality, with one or two parameters dragging the average down from a stronger grade. 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.

At a TSI of 56, Friess Lake reads as eutrophic — nutrient-rich enough that summer algal growth and reduced clarity are expected, not unusual. Friess Lake reaches 48 ft at its deepest point — typical for Wisconsin mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. The lake's 121 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. Friess Lake ranks 14 of 15 in Washington County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Friess Lake is on the Wisconsin infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. Walleye are documented at Friess Lake, one of 4 fish species on record for the lake. 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.