Lake Placid

On the LakeGrade rubric, Lake Placid pulls an A: clarity at 15.0 ft and 12 µg/L of phosphorus put it in the top bracket for Wisconsin. With clarity and phosphorus scored, the sub-grades cluster within a letter of each other, pointing to stable conditions rather than one specific stressor.

Trophically, Lake Placid reads as oligotrophic — nutrient-poor, clear, and ecologically more sensitive to disturbance than richer lakes. A maximum depth of 30 ft puts Lake Placid in the middle of Wisconsin's depth distribution. Lake Placid covers 178 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Within Sawyer County's 50 graded waters, Lake Placid sits at rank 6, near the top of the local distribution.

Eurasian watermilfoil is established at Lake Placid, which can dampen recreational access and pressure the native plant community. Walleye are documented at Lake Placid, one of 4 fish species on record for the lake. Monitoring depth is thin here: the LakeGrade rubric is applied to a small number of sample years, and the grade will be revised as more data accumulates.