Lake Wissota

About Lake Wissota

Lake Wissota covers 6,043 acres in Chippewa County, backed up behind a dam on the Chippewa River above Chippewa Falls. It runs nearly ten miles and carries 50 miles of shoreline, with Jim Falls at its upper end and the settlement of Lake Wissota on its shore.

Four public landings serve it.

The state manages musky here as natural reproduction plus stocking, and walleye as natural reproduction only — the walleye classification meaning that population sustains itself. Smallmouth habitat spans wadable warm water through non-wadable coarse and fine substrate, which points to a lake with rock as well as soft bottom.

An impoundment this size is shaped by the drowned river channel running through it and by the two other rivers that feed in. Check the current DNR regulations before keeping fish.

Written from Wisconsin DNR hydrography and fisheries data. State water ID WBIC 2152800.

How the state manages it

• musky · Natural reproduction plus stocking (Cat. 2)
• smallmouth · Non-Wadable Coarse Substrate; Non-Wadable Fine Substrate; Wadable Warm Water
• walleye · Natural Reproduction Only

Wisconsin DNR fisheries designations. These describe how the water is managed, not what is in it on any given day.

Fishing license

Wisconsin sells them online. Buy one from the state. We don’t know whether you need one — that depends on your age, where you live, the water, and what your guide’s own license covers.