Long Lake

Long Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Waushara County. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

The lake's low TSI puts it in oligotrophic territory — the cleanest of the four trophic classes, but also the most vulnerable to nutrient-driven shifts. A maximum depth of just 14 ft means sediment-bound phosphorus releases back into the water column whenever wind stirs the bottom — a classic shallow-lake dynamic. Long Lake is small — 40 acres alongside partial shoreline records — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Long Lake ranks 2 of 30 in Waushara County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

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