Upper Long Lake

Why people love it here

• The self-styled Walleye Capital of Wisconsin — and the DNR numbers back the swagger: 3,478 acres, a maximum depth of 74 feet, a mean depth of 26 feet, spring-fed and managed first for walleye.
• Roughly 19 miles of island-dotted basins — big, deep water with room for every kind of day: ski the wide water, then duck into quiet bays.
• Four public boat landings, lakeside resorts, restaurants, and bait and tackle on the lake — a full-service fishing lake.
• Carter works mainly in the Chippewa Valley, but he takes territory case by case — the right property makes the drive worth it, and a lake like this is judged on the property, not on a line on the map.

Past Rice Lake, the fishing gets serious

Past Rice Lake, up the Highway 53 corridor near Sarona, Washburn County’s Long Lake is the one locals call Upper Long Lake — and it carries a title: the self-styled Walleye Capital of Wisconsin. The lake stretches roughly 19 miles in a long, island-dotted chain of basins, spring-fed and managed first for walleye. It is the northernmost single lake in Carter’s guide set.

The lake lies in Washburn County around the community of Sarona, north of Rice Lake and roughly an hour and a half from Eau Claire. Rice Lake, about twenty minutes south, is the service hub: groceries, hospital, big-box errands, and the Highway 53 interchange. Around the lake itself you get resorts, bait shops, and supper-club country rather than suburbs.

The homes & cabins

Cabins and lake homes line a long shoreline of bays and points, with resorts and family compounds mixed in, and even island properties — some of them recreational-only and non-buildable, which is exactly the kind of detail to verify before falling for a listing. Because the lake runs 19 miles, the north and south ends feel like different markets: closer to Rice Lake and busier in the south, quieter and more remote-feeling as you go north.

So shop this lake end-first, not listing-first. A south-end property is partly a purchase of nearness — Rice Lake and its services sit about twenty minutes away, and the shore is busier for it. A north-end property buys quiet and distance, and asks you to be honest about winter access and road maintenance up there. A bay-front place and a basin-front place can share a shoreline and still live differently, because the basin in front of the dock decides the depth, the fishing and the kind of day the water gives you.

Island properties deserve their own pause. An island listing can be the most memorable one in the search, and some of them are recreational-only and non-buildable, so the memorable photo is the beginning of the questions, not the end of them — buildable status, access and utilities come before anything else. Carter’s way of working a lake this spread out is to pin the exact basin and end before comparing any prices, so two listings that both say Long Lake are being judged as what they actually are.

What to watch for

• Which end of a 19-mile lake — two “Long Lake” listings can be very different markets.
• Island properties: verify buildable status, access, and utilities before anything else.
• Septic and well records; propane heat is common in cabins here.
• Winter access and road maintenance at the quiet north end.
• Which basin the frontage sits on — depth and fishing quality vary.

Schools & services

Many addresses around the lake are in the Rice Lake Area School District, but the lake crosses town lines — confirm the assignment for any specific property. Expect private well and septic, propane heat in many cabins, and a drive to Rice Lake for major services and medical care.

On the water & everyday life

• Walleye water with a statewide reputation, plus smallmouth, pike, and panfish — a fishing-first lake in every season, including a strong ice-fishing following.
• Big-water recreation across multiple basins: ski the wide water, then duck into quiet bays to swim or paddle.
• Four public landings, lakeside resorts, restaurants, and bait and tackle on the lake.
• Hunt Hill Audubon Sanctuary near Sarona for hiking trails and nature programs off the water.
• ATV and snowmobile trail systems throughout Washburn County, and Rice Lake’s full services twenty minutes south.

Put together, a day here is not one note. The wide water is for skiing and the fishing boats; the quiet bays are where the same day slows down for a swim or a paddle; and the ice-fishing following means the lake does not close when summer does. Off the water, Hunt Hill Audubon Sanctuary near Sarona gives the place hiking trails and nature programs, and the county trail systems fill in the rest of the map. It is a fishing-first lake, but it is not a one-activity lake — which is part of why families hold places here across the seasons instead of treating them as a single summer weekend.

Who it fits — and the honest trade-offs

Showing-day checklist

• Pin the exact basin and end of the lake before comparing prices.
• Confirm winter road maintenance at the north end.
• Check depth and water clarity at the dock.
• Verify buildable status on any island or remote parcel.
• Drive Rice Lake's services — that's your errand base.
• Pull septic and well records; note the heat source.

Good next step

Pick an end of the lake first — busy south or quiet north — then tour both a basin-front and a bay-front property. Carter can pull recent sales along the whole 19 miles so the end-to-end price difference is concrete.

Sources: Wisconsin DNR — Long Lake (Washburn County) lake pages · Wisconsin Department of Revenue — 2024 Statement of Taxes and 2024 Statement of Assessment, Washburn County (2024 levy, payable 2025) · Town of Long Lake Comprehensive Plan draft (town net tax rate) This guide is a starting point, not a statement about every property. Verify schools, taxes, zoning, shoreline rules, water and septic systems, rental rules, and other priorities for a specific address before you buy.

House-hunting this week? See this week’s open houses in Eau Claire — every brokerage’s open houses, in one place, no sign-up needed.

Taxes & total cost

The short version: About $220 a month on a $250,000 home — the school district does nearly all the heavy lifting here, because the town’s own levy is under a dollar per $1,000 against a big lakefront tax base.

There is no city or village on Upper Long Lake — homes sit in towns, and the primary one is the Town of Long Lake. For a town property in the Rice Lake Area School District — which serves many addresses around the lake — the net rate for the 2024 levy, payable in 2025, was $10.55 per $1,000 of assessed value. A mill is $1 of tax per $1,000 of value, figured on the assessor’s value, not the sale price. Town assessments averaged about 95% of market value in 2024 — a little below market on average — but any one cabin can land above or below its likely sale price.

Where each $1,000 of value on that side of town went:

• Rice Lake Area School District — $8.32 per $1,000 before credits, by far the biggest piece. The state’s school levy tax credit, about $1.71 per $1,000 here, comes off this piece, leaving a school share of about $6.61.
• Washburn County — $2.81 per $1,000, including the state’s small special charge, which rounds to $0.00 per $1,000 here.
• Town of Long Lake — $0.88 per $1,000. Town government here is roads, plowing and a short list of services, and the levy shows it.
• Northwood Technical College — $0.25 per $1,000.

The pieces add to a gross rate of $12.26; the school levy credit brings it to the net $10.55. Schools drive this bill — about two-thirds of the gross total. Rates vary around the lake: the town’s Spooner-district side nets about $9.42 per $1,000, other towns touching the lake set their own levies, and the town’s own draft comprehensive plan puts its town-wide net rate for 2025 at $10.10 per $1,000.

The worked example, on a $250,000 home, treating that price as the home’s assessed value: Step 1 — $250,000 ÷ 1,000 = 250. Step 2 — 250 × $10.55 = about $2,640 a year. Step 3 — $2,640 ÷ 12 = about $220 a month.

Two credits come off after the bill is calculated — the lottery and gaming credit (for a primary residence) and the first dollar credit — so you actually pay less than the figure above. Special charges and assessments aren’t in the rate; they ride on the bill separately. And your cabin’s real assessment may differ from the example price — lakefront assessments in particular can run ahead of, or behind, what a cabin would actually sell for.

What keeps this bill below a village or city bill is the town piece: $0.88 of town levy, because a big lakefront tax base carries a short list of town services, while the school district does the heavy lifting. In the total monthly equation, taxes on this example add about $220 a month alongside the mortgage payment and insurance.

See how all 28 areas compare: Chippewa Valley property taxes, side by side.

Questions buyers ask about Upper Long Lake