Seventeen Lake

Seventeen Lake earns a C — middle-of-the-pack water quality, with one or two parameters dragging the average down from a stronger grade. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Wisconsin lakes fall. Seventeen Lake is a shallow lake at 8 ft maximum depth, which means it warms quickly, mixes constantly, and amplifies nutrient inputs. At 61 acres, Seventeen Lake sits below the Wisconsin median: a small water where shoreline activity has an outsized effect on water quality. Within the 202 graded lakes of Vilas County, Seventeen Lake sits at rank 196, near the bottom of the county list.

Seventeen Lake has no invasive species recorded in Wisconsin state databases as of 2022, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The fishery is bass-led, with 2 documented species across the lake's records. 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.