Wild Rice Lake

Wild Rice Lake sits at a C on the grading scale — not impaired, not pristine, with summer measurements that vary year to year. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

The lake sits in the mesotrophic zone — the band where most well-managed Wisconsin lakes fall. The lake bottoms out at 26 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. Wild Rice Lake covers 384 acres alongside partial shoreline records — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Wild Rice Lake ranks 154 of 191 in Vilas County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Wild Rice Lake has at least one documented invasive species (Banded Mystery Snail), so boaters and anglers should observe clean-drain-dry steps when leaving the lake. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 6 documented species — a notable draw for Wisconsin anglers. Public access is available — the lake is on the Wisconsin DNR public-access list. 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.