About Cast Gill

Cast Gill gathers public facts about Wisconsin lakes into one place: size, depth, water clarity, stocking history, boat landings, and a link to the official regulations. It does not give fishing advice. Every fact shows where it came from and when it was last checked.

Cast Gill is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wisconsin DNR. The information is for general use only. Check the official regulations before you fish.

How to read a lake page

• Water clarity is a measured Secchi depth with its date. Secchi depth is how far down a white disk stays visible. A bigger number means clearer water. Clear means a Secchi depth of 10 feet or more, moderate 5 to 10 feet, low under 5 feet. Many lakes were last measured years ago; the page says so.
• Temperature shows a measured reading only when it is recent, with its date. The "typical year" is a modeled estimate from a USGS computer model of each lake, not a measurement.
• Stocking is what the DNR and others added to a lake. It does not say what lives there now.
• Fish recorded near this lake comes from open survey and museum records. A record shows a fish was found near the lake in that year, not that it is there now, and it says nothing about how many.
• The DNR lake type (for example "complex, cool, dark") is the DNR's grouping. "Dark" describes the water's color, not how far you can see.
• Regulations are never restated here. Each page links to the official DNR regulations, which are the only ones that count. DNR fishing regulations.
• Water level and flow and the forecast are fetched live when you open a page.

How facts are matched to a lake

Most sources do not use the DNR's lake ID, so facts are matched by name and by location. A monitoring station counts only if it sits inside the lake's outline (or very near it with a matching name) and carries the lake's name. Boat landings are matched the same way. Lakes that share a name, such as the many "Mud Lakes", are told apart by location, and a fact that cannot be placed is left out. The outlines are the DNR's, drawn decades ago, so a shape can be off and a match can be missed.

Pages with little data

Not every lake has been measured. A page that has neither measured water clarity nor a modeled temperature is kept for visitors and for search here, but is asked not to be listed by search engines until it has more to say.

Report a mistake

A way to report a mistake is coming. Until then, check anything important against the official DNR pages.

See data sources for every source and its credit.