Kenora District, Ontario

Eagle Lake

Two hundred and eighty-two square kilometers at Vermilion Bay, with 692 islands inside 1,011 kilometers of shoreline and a deepest charted contour of 24.4 meters from the province's 1974 survey. Cold water, with 26 lake trout spawning shoals recorded.

Surface: 281.9 km²
Shoreline: 1,011 km628 mainland + 383 islands
Islands: 692
Charted depth: 24.4 m
Depth contours: 466

All figures are derived from Ontario’s survey records.

Where Eagle Lake is

Eagle Lake lies in the District of Kenora, within the Township of Machin.

How deep is Eagle Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Eagle Lake is 24.4 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 466 depth contours for Eagle Lake.

The deepest charted contour on Eagle Lake, 24.4 meters, from the survey of 16 August 1974. The circle marks the centre of that contour, and the water within it is deeper. Four contours reach this depth; the largest is marked. The survey’s 466 depth contours are drawn where the province published them, and along the outline where the survey placed them beyond it. Outline from the Ontario Hydro Network. Each contour is labelled with its depth in meters; zoom in where they run close.

Surveyed Depths

Ontario has surveyed the depths of several thousand of its lakes over more than half a century. Later surveys were conducted by boat with satellite positioning and produced hundreds of thousands of soundings per lake. Earlier surveys were charted by running transects across the water and drawing depth contours by hand.

Water quality

Ontario’s Lake Partner Program is a volunteer monitoring network. Participants collect a water sample each spring for phosphorus analysis and measure water clarity through the summer with a Secchi disk.

Phosphorus is the nutrient that controls how much algae a lake can grow. A lake with little phosphorus stays clear and supports cold-water fish such as lake trout. As phosphorus rises, algae increase, the water clouds, and oxygen in the deep water falls as the algae decay. The province classifies each monitoring site by its spring phosphorus. Below 10 micrograms per litre is oligotrophic: clear water and low algae. From 10 to 20 is mesotrophic: moderately productive water, with more algae and weed growth than an oligotrophic lake but rarely a bloom. Above 20 is eutrophic: nutrient-rich water, prone to algal blooms and low oxygen at depth.

A Secchi disk is a 20 centimeter white or black-and-white plate lowered on a marked line until it disappears from view. The depth at which it vanishes is the Secchi depth, a direct measure of water clarity. Clearer water gives a deeper reading.

Eagle Lake has 4 Lake Partner monitoring sites. Four have reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned. All are classified mesotrophic.

Lake Partner sites on Eagle Lake with a quotable phosphorus record
Site	Location	Years	Last sampled	Classification
1299/4	Waldhof Bay, deep spot	6	2024	mesotrophic
1299/1	N end, Outlet Bay	4	2024	mesotrophic
1299/2	W end-S.of Nash's Bay	4	2024	mesotrophic
1299/5	West Arm Bay	4	2024	mesotrophic

The longest record is held by site 1299/4 at Waldhof Bay, deep spot, sampled over 6 springs to 2024. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 11.1 micrograms per litre, within the mesotrophic band, which runs from 10 to 20. The site’s 4 clarity readings give a median Secchi depth of 2.55 meters.

Median Secchi depth by year at site 1299/4, surface at the top. The thin line through each bar spans the shallowest and deepest reading that year, and the row beneath the years gives the number of readings. Years without readings are blank.

Fish in Eagle Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 22 fish species in Eagle Lake. The province classes the lake as cold water. The record took effect on 20 October 2014, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then. The province’s other records for the lake name two further species, among them brook trout. They appear in the records below.

Twelve of the 24 species in the province’s records

Lake Trouttrout and whitefish
Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
Ciscotrout and whitefish
Northern Pikepike
Muskellungepike
Walleyeperch
Saugerperch
Yellow Perchperch
Smallmouth Basssunfish
Rock Basssunfish
Pumpkinseedsunfish
Burbotcod

The other twelve species in the province’s records
Family	Species
Trout and whitefish	brook trout
Sucker	shorthead redhorse, white sucker
Minnow	blacknose shiner, bluntnose minnow, emerald shiner, mimic shiner, spottail shiner
Sculpin	slimy sculpin, spoonhead sculpin
Trout-perch	trout-perch
Other	redhorse sucker

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 42 fish spawning records within the Eagle Lake outline, for six species, all of them mapped areas.

By number of records

By area mapped

Lake Trout26 areas41.7 ha
Walleye5 areas79.4 ha
White Sucker4 areas0.5 ha
Muskellunge4 areas18.7 ha
Smallmouth Bass2 areas1.2 ha
Northern Pike1 area0.1 ha

Spawning records mapped by the province within the Eagle Lake outline. A record under 100 square meters is drawn as a dot; a spawning area is drawn as the outline mapped. One colour per species, the same as the bars and the list above.

The federal Fisheries Act prohibits the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat without an authorization, so a dock, dredging, infill or shoreline work at a mapped spawning area is reviewed on that basis.

Stocking history

Ontario’s stocking records for Eagle Lake run from 1946 to 1966 and hold 22 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 8,550,000 released in nine of the years between 1946 and 1957. The last recorded release was 3,000 brook trout fingerlings in 1966.

Fish released into Eagle Lake, 1946 to 1966
Species	Years	Years with a release	Fish released
Walleye	1946 to 1957	9	8,550,000
Lake Trout	1946 to 1955	7	41,000
Brook Trout	1956 to 1966	5	15,500

The province’s current stocking programme, recorded from 2016, lists no release into Eagle Lake.

Eating the fish

The 2025 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for eleven species taken from Eagle Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in south of Eagle River, Aubrey & Temple Twps., Kenora Dist. Each figure below is the most meals a month the guide advises for a fish of that length. The advice falls as the fish gets longer, because mercury accumulates over a fish’s life. A zero means the guide advises no meals of that fish at that size.

General population adultsSensitive population children under fifteen, women who are or may become pregnant

Lake Trout Mercury
Length, cm	70 to 75	over 75
General population	4	4
Sensitive population	0	0

Lake Whitefish no contaminant listed
Length, cm	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55	55 to 60	60 to 65	65 to 70	70 to 75
General population	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32	32
Sensitive population	32	32	32	32	32	32	16	16	16	16

Walleye Mercury
Length, cm	20 to 25	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55	55 to 60	60 to 65	65 to 70	70 to 75
General population	16	16	16	8	8	4	4	4	4	2	2
Sensitive population	8	4	4	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Northern Pike Mercury
Length, cm	15 to 20	20 to 25	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55	55 to 60	60 to 65	65 to 70	70 to 75	over 75
General population	32	32	32	16	16	16	16	16	16	12	12	8	4
Sensitive population	16	16	16	12	8	8	8	8	4	4	4	4	0

Muskellunge Mercury
Length, cm	over 75
General population	2
Sensitive population	0

Smallmouth Bass Mercury
Length, cm	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50
General population	16	12	8	8	4
Sensitive population	8	4	4	0	0

Yellow Perch Mercury
Length, cm	20 to 25	25 to 30
General population	32	16
Sensitive population	16	8

Burbot Mercury
Length, cm	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55	55 to 60	60 to 65	65 to 70	70 to 75	over 75
General population	32	32	32	16	16	12	8	8	8	8
Sensitive population	12	12	12	8	8	4	4	4	4	0

White Sucker Mercury
Length, cm	20 to 25	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55	55 to 60
General population	32	32	32	32	32	32	16	16
Sensitive population	32	32	32	16	16	12	8	8

Redhorse Sucker Mercury
Length, cm	40 to 45	45 to 50
General population	32	16
Sensitive population	16	8

Sauger Mercury
Length, cm	20 to 25	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40
General population	12	8	8	2
Sensitive population	4	4	0	0

Fisheries Management Zone 5

Eagle Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 5. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

Zone 5 seasons and limits, 2026
Species	Open season	Sport licence	Conservation licence
Brook Trout	Open all year	5	2
Brown Trout	Open all year	5	2
Crappie	Open all year	10	5
Lake Trout	Jan. 1 – Sept. 30	2, not more than 1 greater than 56 cm (22 in.) from Sept. 1 – Sept. 30	1, no size limit
Lake Whitefish	Open all year	12	6
Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass or any combination	Open all year	4; Must be less than 35 cm (13.8 in.) from Jan. 1 – June 30	2; Must be less than 35 cm (13.8 in.) from Jan. 1 – June 30
Muskellunge	3rd Sat. in June – Dec. 15	1, must be greater than 102 cm (40 in.)	0
Northern Pike	Open all year	4; none greater than 75 cm (29.5 in.)	2; none greater than 75 cm (29.5 in.)
Rainbow Trout	Open all year	5	2
Splake	Open all year	5	2
Sunfish	Open all year	50	25
Walleye and Sauger or any combination	Jan. 1 – Apr. 14 & 3rd Sat. in May – Dec. 31	4, not more than 1 greater than 46 cm (18.1 in.)	2, not more than 1 greater than 46 cm (18.1 in.)
Yellow Perch	Open all year	50	25

The figures are the number of fish an angler may catch and keep in a day and have in possession, under a sport fishing licence and under a conservation licence. The rows are the whole zone’s, and they apply to every lake in it. Zone-wide, Smelt may not be used as bait or possessed for use as bait.

Exceptions for Eagle Lake itself, 2026
Species	Open season	Sport licence	Conservation licence	Size limit
Muskellunge	Zone-wide	Zone-wide	Zone-wide	Must be greater than 137 cm (54 in.)
Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass or any combination	Zone-wide	2; must be less than 35 cm (13.8 in.) from Jan. 1 – June 30 & Dec. 1 – Dec. 31; 4; no size limit from July 1 – Nov. 30	1; must be less than 35 cm (13.8 in.) from Jan. 1 – June 30 & Dec. 1 – Dec. 31; 2; no size limit from July 1 – Nov. 30	—
Lake Trout	Zone-wide	2, not more than 1 greater than 65 cm (25.6 in.); 1 in one day	1, not more than 1 greater than 65 cm (25.6 in.); 1 in one day	—
Walleye	Zone-wide	Zone-wide	Zone-wide	None between 46 – 58 cm (18.1 – 22.8 in.), not more than 1 greater than 58 cm (22.8 in.)

Where a row reads zone-wide, the zone’s own season or limit above applies.

Fish sanctuaries recorded for Eagle Lake
Where	Closed
Eagle Lake – portions of Eagle Lake and associated waters including Whiteclay Narrows, Brule Narrows, Niven Bay, Bunyon Lake, Godson Creek, Kekekwa Creek, Wawapus Creek, Bear Narrows, Froghead Bay, Rice Bay, Violet Lake, One Mile Rapids, Two Mile Rapids, Meridian Bay	No fishing from Apr. 1 – May 31
Eagle Lake – portions of Eagle Lake and associated waters including Whiteclay Narrows, Brule Narrows, Niven Bay, Bunyon Lake, Godson Creek, Kekekwa Creek, Wawapus Creek, Bear Narrows, Froghead Bay, Rice Bay, Violet Lake, One Mile Rapids, Two Mile Rapids, Meridian Bay	No fishing from Apr. 1 – May 31
Passover Creek – between the southern end of Meridian Bay of Eagle Lake (49°42’N., 93°13’W.) and Chancellor Lake	No fishing from Apr. 1 – May 31
Eagle Lake – portions of Eagle Lake and associated waters including Whiteclay Narrows, Brule Narrows, Niven Bay, Bunyon Lake, Godson Creek, Kekekwa Creek, Wawapus Creek, Bear Narrows, Froghead Bay, Rice Bay, Violet Lake, One Mile Rapids, Two Mile Rapids, Meridian Bay	No fishing from Apr. 1 – May 31

Islands and names

Eagle Lake contains 692 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, 37 of them over 10 hectares and 288 under a tenth of a hectare.

The ten largest islands, numbered to the table. Areas are measured on the province’s outline.

The ten largest islands
	Island	Hectares
1	Boat Island	862.0
2	Canoe Island	348.9
3	Net Island	283.4
4	unnamed	147.6
5	unnamed	129.1
6	Float Island	117.0
7	Staton Island	113.6
8	North Twin Island	101.4
9	unnamed	80.3
10	unnamed	76.9

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 73 official names on the water and its islands: 30 islands, 29 bays, two rocks, three narrows and two points on islands. A further 8 named points stand on the mainland shore.

Bays 29

Bottle Bay
Boulder Bay
Camp 6 Bay
Eldorado Bay
Favell Bay
Fornieri Bay
Froghead Bay
Jackfish Bay
Kennedy's Bay
Kuenzli Bay
Little Muskeg Bay
Littleneck Bay
McKenzie Bay
Meridian Bay
Mukluk Bay
Muskeg Bay
Myer's Bay
Nash's Bay
Osbourne Bay
Outlet Bay
Portage Bay
Reserve Bay
Rice Bay
Smith's Bay
Spring Bay
Stanton Bay
Temple Bay
Vermilion Bay
Waldhof Bay

Shoals and rocks 2

Walleye Rock One
Walleye Rock Two

Harbours, cuts and narrows 3

Brûlé Narrows
Canoe Narrows
Hole-in-the-Wall

Points on the shore 8

Bear Point
Birch Point
Detour Point
Hilder's Point
Partridge Point
Red Pine Point
Rendezvous Point
Windigo Point

Nearby lakes

Wabigoon Lake35 km away
Dinorwic Lake47 km away
Dryberry Lake48 km away
Kakagi Lake71 km away

All lakes

Questions about Eagle Lake

How deep is Eagle Lake?
Its deepest charted contour is 24.4 meters, and the water within it is deeper.
How big is Eagle Lake?
Its surface covers 281.9 square kilometers and it holds 692 islands. Of its 1,011 kilometers of shoreline, 628 kilometers is the mainland shore and 383 kilometers is the shore of the islands.
What fish are in Eagle Lake?
Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 22 species, among them lake trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, muskellunge and lake whitefish. The lake’s spawning, consumption and stocking records also name brook trout.
Is the water clear?
All four monitoring sites with a phosphorus status are classified mesotrophic, the middle of the province’s three bands.

A print of Eagle Lake

Eagle Lake has not yet been drawn as a print. The lakes drawn so far are on the lake maps page, and a print of Eagle Lake can be requested by email; whether it can be drawn is confirmed before any payment.

Ask about a Eagle Lake print

Looking at a property on Eagle Lake?

Depth and water quality are two records out of many. Our Rural & Cottage Buyer’s Report gathers what the public record holds about one specific address: shore road allowance, road access, wells, flood mapping, Crown land, wetlands and more, read and checked by a person before it is sent.

See what is in the report

What these figures do and do not say

Depth: A depth reading is the distance from the water surface on the day of survey to the lake bottom. Lake levels vary through the season and between years. The depth figure above is the deepest contour charted and is a minimum; the depth within it was not recorded. The figures for Eagle Lake are read from the province’s bathymetry records within the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline of the lake: the deepest figure is the deepest record inside that outline, and the count is every record inside it.
Shoreline and surface: The shoreline figure is the length of the mainland shore and of every island shore added together, measured on the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline of the lake. The surface figure is the area of water inside that outline, less the area of its islands. The provincial outline is mapped to within a few meters of the shore, and a shoreline measured from a coarser map comes out shorter, which is why a figure published elsewhere is often lower.
Survey coverage: Not every survey covered every arm of a lake, and the province’s index does not always record where a survey ended.
Water quality: Each figure belongs to a single monitoring site and not to the lake as a whole. A bay receiving a creek can read differently from open water half a kilometer away. Sites are matched to Eagle Lake by name in the province’s records.
Nearby lakes: Distances are measured between lake centres.
Islands and names: Islands are counted and measured on the Ontario Hydro Network outline; names are the register’s, placed by its own coordinate. The register names islands the outline draws as part of a larger one, and the outline holds islands the register has not named, so the two counts differ. The outline carries some lakes across marsh, so a gap in the marsh is drawn as land, and every such gap is included in the island count. Where the register has not named one and it lies mostly inside a wetland in the province’s Wetland With Significance dataset, the page names the wetland and the table of largest islands leaves it out. Wetland boundaries are mapped at their own scale and can cover a small island whole.
Depth contours: Each contour is drawn where the survey placed it, at the survey’s own positional accuracy. The survey carries its own shoreline, which differs from the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, so a contour near the shore can run to or past the outline. Such a stretch is drawn along the outline, as a drawing convention, and is not the survey’s line there. The contour count in the stat band is the province’s, and it includes the survey’s own shoreline contour, one ring around the mainland and one around each charted island, which the map leaves off; the map’s small print gives the split.
Location: Municipal boundaries are read from the province’s records as published and can lag a boundary change.
Fish: Ontario’s fish records are compilations of existing knowledge from field biologists and do not represent exhaustive inventories. A species that is not listed was not ruled out. The species list carries one date for the whole record and none for any species.
Spawning areas: A spawning area is drawn where the province mapped it, at the province’s stated accuracy, and the record says nothing about how many fish use it in a given year. A nest record is one nest seen on one day; a count of nests is not a count of fish, and a count of records is not a comparison between species. Whether a given piece of work needs an authorization is a determination made by Fisheries and Oceans Canada on the work itself.
Stocking: A stocking record is a release on a date. It says nothing about how many fish survived or about the population in the lake today.
Eating advice: The guide’s advice is for fish taken from the lake at the tested location and applies to the size classes tested. The province’s guide is the authority and is updated each year.
Fishing rules: Seasons and limits are the zone’s, for the year of the dataset the page was built from, and a licence’s own conditions and any waterbody exception apply over them. The province’s regulations summary is the authority.

Where these figures come from

Depth, shoreline, islands and named places: Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources bathymetry and the Ontario Hydro Network, © King’s Printer for Ontario, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Phosphorus and water clarity: Ontario Lake Partner Program, Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Open Government Licence – Ontario. Extract built 2026-08-09.
Aerial photography: Ontario Imagery Web Map Service, Open Government Licence – Ontario, drawing this frame from North Western Ontario Orthophotography Project 2022, Northwestern Ontario Orthophotography Project 2017, Forest Resources Inventory 2007-2011 and Sentinel 2 2025, satellite.
Official names: Geographic Names Ontario, Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario. Marinas: Overture Maps Foundation places data, CDLA-Permissive 2.0.
Lake outline and municipal boundaries: Ontario Hydro Network and Ontario municipal boundary records, Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Fish species and thermal regime: Ontario Aquatic Resource Area records. Spawning areas: Ontario Fish Activity Area records. Both Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Stocking: Historical Fish Stocking Data and Fish Stocking Data for Recreational Purposes, Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Consumption advice: Guide to Eating Ontario Fish advisory database, 2025 edition, Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Seasons and limits: Ontario recreational fishing regulations data, Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Fish plates: Duane Raver, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Ellen Edmonson and Hugh Chrisp, New York State Conservation Department; Timothy Knepp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. All public domain.