Namekagon Lake

About Namekagon Lake

Namekagon Lake sits in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest north of Cable, in Bayfield County, and covers 2,724 acres by the state's survey. What the acreage does not convey is the shoreline: 37 miles of it against a lake less than four miles across, which is a great deal of bay, point and island for a water this size.

Four public landings serve it. The state's own access in the town of Namakagon is concrete and is the one marked accessible; Funnys Lane in Grand View is the township's concrete ramp, and the two Forest Service accesses are rougher — one concrete panel, one unimproved. The lake is fed by the Namekagon River, which leaves it at the north end and runs on to the St. Croix.

The DNR manages it for musky as a natural-reproduction-plus-stocking water, for walleye as natural reproduction only, and for smallmouth across cool and warm wadable habitat. Lake sturgeon are classified here as naturally reproducing. Those are management classifications rather than a headcount, but the walleye designation is the one that says something real: the state is not propping that population up.

The lake has a long reputation as musky water and is often described locally as one of a small number in Wisconsin managed for trophy fish. Regulations on a lake like that tend to be specific — check the current DNR rules before keeping anything.

Written from Wisconsin DNR hydrography and fisheries data, and from Namekagon Lake Recreation Area — Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Namekagon Lake — Lake-Link.