Lauzon Lake

Where Lauzon Lake is

Lauzon Lake lies in the District of Algoma, with shoreline in the Township of the North Shore and the Town of Blind River.

How deep is Lauzon Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Lauzon Lake is 79.0 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 85 depth contours for Lauzon Lake.

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.

Lauzon Lake has 11 Lake Partner monitoring sites. Eleven have reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned. All are classified oligotrophic.

The longest record is held by site 2506/10 at E basin – Snucins 5, sampled over 5 springs to 2019. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 4.36 micrograms per litre, within the oligotrophic band, which extends to 10. The site’s 2 clarity readings give a median Secchi depth of 4.75 meters.

Fish in Lauzon Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 23 fish species in Lauzon Lake. The province classes the lake as cold water. The record took effect on 16 March 2017, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then. The province’s other records for the lake name five further species, among them rainbow trout, chinook salmon and coho salmon. They appear in the records below.

Fifteen of the 28 species in the province’s records

• Lake Trouttrout and whitefish
• Rainbow Trouttrout and whitefish
• Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
• Ciscotrout and whitefish
• Chinook Salmontrout and whitefish
• Coho Salmontrout and whitefish
• Northern Pikepike
• Muskellungepike
• Yellow Perchperch
• Smallmouth Basssunfish
• Largemouth Basssunfish
• Rock Basssunfish
• Pumpkinseedsunfish
• Burbotcod
• Brown Bullheadcatfish

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 7 fish spawning records within the Lauzon Lake outline, for six species, all of them mapped areas. One of the areas is one outline mapped for pink salmon, rainbow smelt, rainbow trout, chinook salmon and coho salmon alike. An outline filed for more than one species is drawn once, striped in each of their colours.

By number of records

By area mapped

• Lake Trout2 areas13.8 ha
• Pink Salmon1 area6.6 ha
• Rainbow Smelt1 area6.6 ha
• Rainbow Trout1 area6.6 ha
• Chinook Salmon1 area6.6 ha
• Coho Salmon1 area6.6 ha

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 Lauzon Lake run from 1946 to 1965 and hold 16 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 4,200,000 released in six of the years between 1946 and 1965. The last recorded release was 1,000,000 walleye eggs in 1965.

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

Eating the fish

The 2025 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for three species taken from Lauzon Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Striker & Long Twps., Algoma 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

Fisheries Management Zone 10

Lauzon Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 10. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

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.

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

Lauzon Lake Ice Fishing

An ice hut on Lauzon Lake must be removed by March 31. Lauzon Lake lies in fisheries management zone 10, one of the twenty zones Ontario sets its fishing rules by, and one removal date applies across the whole zone.

An ice hut must also be removed before the ice breaks up, whether or not that date has passed. The deadline clears huts from the ice ahead of the thaw and does not close the fishing season.

Registration is required in zone 10 for an ice hut built of anything other than fabric, and for a fabric tent covering seven square meters or more. Registration is free, and the number is displayed on the outside of the hut.

Ice conditions

No public record reports the thickness or the condition of the ice on Lauzon Lake on any given day. Ontario publishes ice safety guidance for anyone going out on the ice, at ontario.ca.

Islands and names

Lauzon Lake contains 37 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, three of them over 10 hectares and nineteen under a tenth of a hectare. Sugar Island, at 85 hectares, is larger than the next ten together, which cover 47.

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 13 official names on the water and its islands: 5 islands, six bays, one rock and one narrows. A further 1 named point stands on the mainland shore.

Bays 6

• Algoma Bay
• Allen Bay
• Bickel's Bay
• Fisherman's Bay
• Lauzon Bay
• Spooner's Bay

Shoals and rocks 1

• Gull Rock

Harbours, cuts and narrows 1

• Spooner's Narrows

Points on the shore 1

• Pregnant Point

Nearby lakes

• Matinenda Lake22 km away
• Chiblow Lake24 km away
• Basswood Lake47 km away
• Lake Wolsey48 km away

All lakes

Questions about Lauzon Lake

• How deep is Lauzon Lake?

  Its deepest charted contour is 79 meters, and the water within it is deeper.

• How big is Lauzon Lake?

  Its surface covers 22.2 square kilometers and it holds 37 islands. Of its 98 kilometers of shoreline, 79 kilometers is the mainland shore and 19 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in Lauzon Lake?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 23 species, among them lake trout, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, northern pike, muskellunge and lake whitefish. The lake’s spawning, consumption and stocking records also name rainbow trout, chinook salmon, coho salmon and walleye.

• Is the water clear?

  All eleven monitoring sites with a phosphorus status are classified oligotrophic, the clearest of the province’s three bands.