Rinehart Lake

Rinehart Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Portage County. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

A TSI value of 38 puts Rinehart Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. The lake bottoms out at 27 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Rinehart Lake is small — 43 acres alongside partial shoreline records — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Among the 28 graded lakes in Portage County, Rinehart Lake ranks 2 — in the top quartile locally.

Rinehart Lake has at least one documented invasive species (Banded Mystery Snail), so boaters and anglers should observe clean-drain-dry steps when leaving the lake. The fishery is bass-led, with 3 documented species across the lake's records. A documented public access point at Rinehart Lake 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.