Featured Lake
About Phillips (Lucerne) Lake:

If you stop at the Lucerne Inn (midway between Brewer and Ellsworth) you will get a very fine view of 859-acre Phillips Lake (especially during the leaf-off months). Originally called Fitts Pond, the lake’s current name comes from the family who founded and ran the original incarnation of the inn, Nathan Phillips and his brother or son John L. Phillips.

With a maximum depth of 98 feet, Phillips Lake ranks 84th by depth among Maine lakes; it is one-third as deep as Maine’s deepest lake, Sebago. The overall average Secchi depth is 8.2 meters, well towards the oligotrophic end of the transparency spectrum for lakes in our state.

The lake has two major outlets: Mill Stream in the northern end of the lake which connects to Alamoosook Lake, and a second outlet at the southwestern end of the lake, Mann Brook, which flows into Green Lake. In 2014, Phillips Lake was listed on Maine DEP’s Nonpoint Source Priority Watersheds List due to heavy development pressure in the watershed.

Steve Underwood has produced a great drone video of this lake.

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What's New?
Maine Field Guide to
Aquatic Phenomena

Every lake in Maine is a place of wonder & discovery!

Asiatic clam, Bellmouth Ramshorn, Bullfrog, Brazilian Elodea, Bryozoans, Eastern Elliptio, Fishfly, Gloeotrichia, Freshwater jellyfish, Lake balls, Langmuir currents, Rusty crayfish, Volvox, Water bear ...

These are a few of the more than 150 examples of flora, fauna and lake phenomena that you can find in Lake Stewards of Maine's (LSM) newly released Maine Field Guide. Stunning photos illustrate each item. The Guide also includes descriptions of attributes such as identifying characteristics, habitat, biology & ecology.

This is a crowd-sourced compendium! LSM encourages users of the Guide to further expand this resource by contributing additional items and observations.

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Did You Know?
LSM / VLMP Celebrates 50 Years!

A half-century that has seen thousands of volunteers collecting data from over 1000 Maine lakes!

Over the past 5 decades, volunteers & others throughout Maine have produced an incredibly rich lakes data set - including more than 138,000 Secchi disk measurements, over 44,000 temperature-dissolved oxygen profiles, and many other measurements on lake chemistry & biology.

Listen to 3 lake scientists, each with several decades of experience working with Maine lakes, as they share their thoughts on the conservation & management of our lakes, the role of LSM, and the many dedicated citizen scientists who have contributed so much to an understanding of these ecosystems. Click the Show More button below for links to videos.

These video clips are from LSM’s annual conference, July 2021. Click on names to access the videos.

Matt Scott (click for video) is an aquatic biologist, a founder of ME DEP’s Lakes Program as well as of VLMP, former deputy commissioner of IF&W and Master Maine Guide. Matt shares his insights on the origins of VLMP and his recollections of many of the people involved with the lakes of our state over the years.

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What's Happening at Lake Stewards

Visit Lake Stewards of Maine's web site for the latest news and information.

Current Conditions

Click here to view current water quality conditions on a representative sample of Maine lakes during summer, or view which lakes have experienced ice-cover in the fall and ice-out in the spring.

Get Involved

The majority of data on lakesofmaine.org comes from certified volunteer citizen scientists. If you are interested in finding a monitoring opportunity, please visit Lake Stewards of Maine or contact our office at 207-783-7733. Email is [email protected]