Silver Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric, Silver Lake pulls an A: clarity at 42.7 ft and 13 µg/L of phosphorus put it in the top bracket for Wisconsin. 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.

Trophically, Silver Lake reads as oligotrophic — nutrient-poor, clear, and ecologically more sensitive to disturbance than richer lakes. At 91 ft of maximum depth, Silver Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. Silver Lake covers 331 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Silver Lake ranks 1 of 38 in Barron County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

An invasive species record — Chinese Mystery Snail — has been logged at Silver Lake; Wisconsin DNR maintains the official infested-waters list. Walleye are documented at Silver Lake, one of 6 fish species on record for the lake. 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.