Fishing at White Potato Lake, Oconto County, Wisconsin

• Overview

  Wisconsin holds White Potato Lake, in Oconto County. The setting is mixed forest on every side. Surface area runs to roughly 1,024 acres, so plan for one area rather than the whole. With 5.9 miles or so of shoreline, boat anglers cover ground the bank cannot. By surface area it heads our Oconto County listings. Nearest place of any size is Gillett, 18 miles away. Oconto Falls is 19 miles away, with Peshtigo at 23 miles. The county line is nowhere near, so one local authority covers the water.

• Where to Fish on White Potato Lake

  No depth figure appears in our records, so the bank has to tell you. Look for the band where the shallows give up and the bottom falls away. On a natural lake the weed line and the shelf beyond it do the work. Open biodiversity records for Oconto County list brown trout, largemouth bass, bluegill, yellow perch and northern pike. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. The near bank of White Potato Lake is often the one people ignore.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Expect July to average close to 68°F, with January the cold end at about 13°F. Cold locks it up for a good stretch each year. Ice-out usually falls in mid April, and the weeks after it fish hardest. The season between ice runs from about mid April to early December. Late spring and early autumn carry the year between them. Expect White Potato Lake to follow that timing.

• Tackle & Baits

  Access status is simply unknown for this water. This is a natural basin, not a dammed one. You can launch from a ramp around half a mile away. For the bass here, soft plastics worked slow along cover and a spinnerbait for searching do most of the work. Where a permit is needed, the nearest town usually sells it. Access can change hands, so last year's answer may not hold. Should this one be busy, Giese Lake is 1.3 miles off. Nothing here settles the position at White Potato Lake for certain.