Little Lac Courte Oreilles Lake

Little Lac Courte Oreilles Lake sits at the top of the Wisconsin DNR grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Wisconsin. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

Trophically, Little Lac Courte Oreilles Lake reads as oligotrophic — nutrient-poor, clear, and ecologically more sensitive to disturbance than richer lakes. The lake bottoms out at 46 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Little Lac Courte Oreilles Lake covers 221 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Little Lac Courte Oreilles Lake sits at rank 30 of 52 in Sawyer County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

Eurasian watermilfoil has been documented at Little Lac Courte Oreilles Lake, requiring shoreline management to keep dense mats from crowding native vegetation. Walleye are documented at Little Lac Courte Oreilles Lake, one of 6 fish species on record for the lake. Multiple sampling years from the Wisconsin DNR Citizen Lake Monitoring Network back the grade, so the letter should hold steady absent a major watershed shift.