Rice Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric Rice Lake fails the cutoffs — a TSI of 76 and persistent algal pressure put it in the bottom tier. clarity and phosphorus rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI above 70 puts Rice Lake in hypereutrophic territory: visible blooms are common, and clarity rarely climbs even in early summer. A maximum depth of just 8 ft means sediment-bound phosphorus releases back into the water column whenever wind stirs the bottom — a classic shallow-lake dynamic. Rice Lake covers 117 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Rice Lake ranks 10 of 21 in Dane County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

Rice Lake has at least one documented invasive species (Curly-Leaf Pondweed), so boaters and anglers should observe clean-drain-dry steps when leaving the lake. 1 fish species are documented at Rice 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.