Prairie Lake

Prairie Lake sits at the top of the Wisconsin DNR grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Wisconsin. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI value of 28 puts Prairie Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. The lake's maximum depth is not yet documented in state morphometric records — context for its physical structure remains limited. The lake is compact at 59 acres, with partial shoreline records and little volume to buffer nutrient inputs. Among the 140 graded lakes in Oneida County, Prairie Lake sits at rank 69, above the county median.

No invasive species are currently listed at Prairie Lake — the lake remains off the Wisconsin infested-waters roster. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 4 documented species — a notable draw for Wisconsin anglers. 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.