Red Cedar Lake

Red Cedar Lake sits at a C on the grading scale — not impaired, not pristine, with summer measurements that vary year to year. Clarity is the limiting factor — phosphorus is reasonable but suspended particles or algal cells keep water transparency below Wisconsin norms.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. Red Cedar Lake is a shallow lake at 6 ft maximum depth, which means it warms quickly, mixes constantly, and amplifies nutrient inputs. Red Cedar Lake covers 344 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Red Cedar Lake ranks 3 of 8 in Jefferson County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

An invasive species record — Purple Loosestrife — has been logged at Red Cedar Lake; Wisconsin DNR maintains the official infested-waters list. 1 fish species are documented at Red Cedar Lake, a mixed warm-water community typical for Wisconsin lakes of this size. 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.