Jessie Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric, Jessie Lake pulls an A: clarity at 21.3 ft and 19 µg/L of phosphorus put it in the top bracket for Wisconsin. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Trophically, Jessie Lake reads as oligotrophic — nutrient-poor, clear, and ecologically more sensitive to disturbance than richer lakes. The lake bottoms out at 20 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake is compact at 38 acres, with partial shoreline records and little volume to buffer nutrient inputs. Among the 32 graded lakes in Langlade County, Jessie Lake sits at rank 12, above the county median.

An invasive species record — Banded Mystery Snail — has been logged at Jessie Lake; Wisconsin DNR maintains the official infested-waters list. The fishery is bass-led, with 3 documented species across the lake's records. 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.