Lake Winneconne

Lake Winneconne sits at a C on the grading scale — not impaired, not pristine, with summer measurements that vary year to year. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Lake Winneconne: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. At only 9 ft deep, Lake Winneconne is shallow — wind keeps the water column mixed and sediment resuspension drives phosphorus levels harder to manage. Lake Winneconne covers 4,553 acres alongside partial shoreline records, large enough that conditions can vary meaningfully between bays. Lake Winneconne ranks 2 of 5 in Winnebago County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Lake Winneconne means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. Walleye are documented at Lake Winneconne, one of 8 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Lake Winneconne 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.