Cochrane District, Ontario
Night Hawk Lake
One hundred and nine square kilometers of water east of Timmins, with 46 islands inside 164 kilometers of shoreline and a deepest charted contour of 4.6 meters from the province's 1971 survey. No aquatic resource record carries the lake's name.
- Surface
- 108.8 km²
- Shoreline
- 164 km147 mainland + 17 islands
- Islands
- 46
- Charted depth
- 4.6 m
- Depth contours
- 86
All figures are derived from Ontario’s survey records.
Where Night Hawk Lake is
Night Hawk Lake lies in the District of Cochrane, within the City of Timmins.
How deep is Night Hawk Lake?
The deepest mapped contour on Night Hawk Lake is 4.6 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 86 depth contours for Night Hawk 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.
No monitoring site on Night Hawk Lake is registered with the Lake Partner Program, so no phosphorus or clarity record exists for the lake.
Fish in Night Hawk Lake
Ontario’s aquatic resource records list no species for Night Hawk Lake. The province’s other records for the lake name seven species, among them cisco, northern pike and sauger. They appear in the records below.
Four of the seven species in the province’s records
Ciscotrout and whitefish
Northern Pikepike
Walleyeperch
Saugerperch
| Family | Species |
|---|---|
| Sucker | white sucker |
| Other | goldeye, mooneye |
Eating the fish
The 2025 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for seven species taken from Night Hawk Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Cody Twp., Cochrane 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
| Length, cm | 35 to 40 | 40 to 45 |
|---|---|---|
| General population | 32 | 32 |
| Sensitive population | 32 | 32 |
| 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 | 32 | 16 | 16 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Sensitive population | 16 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 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 | over 75 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General population | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| Sensitive population | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Length, cm | 20 to 25 | 25 to 30 | 30 to 35 | 35 to 40 | 40 to 45 | 45 to 50 | 50 to 55 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General population | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Sensitive population | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Length, cm | 25 to 30 | 30 to 35 | 35 to 40 | 40 to 45 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General population | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Sensitive population | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Length, cm | 30 to 35 | 35 to 40 | 40 to 45 | 45 to 50 | 50 to 55 | 55 to 60 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General population | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Sensitive population | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Length, cm | 20 to 25 | 25 to 30 | 30 to 35 | 35 to 40 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General population | 16 | 12 | 8 | 0 |
| Sensitive population | 8 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
Fisheries Management Zone 8
Night Hawk Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 8. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.
| Species | Open season | Sport licence | Conservation licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brook Trout | Jan. 1 – Sept. 15 | 5 | 2 |
| Lake Sturgeon | Jan. 1 – Apr. 30 & July 1 – Dec. 31 | 0 | 0 |
| Lake Trout | Feb. 15 – Mar. 15 & 3rd Sat. in May – Sept. 30 | 3 | 1 |
| Lake Whitefish | Open all year | 25 | 12 |
| Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass or any combination | Open all year | 6 | 2 |
| Northern Pike | Open all year | 6, not more than 2 greater than 61 cm (24 in.), of which not more than 1 is greater than 86 cm (33.9 in.) | 2, not more than 1 greater than 61 cm (24 in.), none greater than 86 cm (33.9 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. No waterbody exception names Night Hawk Lake.
Islands and names
Night Hawk Lake contains 46 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, one of them over 10 hectares and fifteen under a tenth of a hectare. Three of them lie inside wetlands mapped in the province’s Wetland With Significance dataset. Moose Island, at 34 hectares, is larger than the next ten together, which cover 31.
| Island | Hectares | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moose Island | 34.4 |
| 2 | Crow Island | 9.5 |
| 3 | Cindy Island | 5.8 |
| 4 | Hand Island | 3.6 |
| 5 | unnamed | 2.7 |
| 6 | unnamed | 2.3 |
| 7 | unnamed | 1.7 |
| 8 | Callinan Island | 1.6 |
| 9 | Auer Island | 1.2 |
| 10 | Burn Island | 1.2 |
Official names
Ontario’s geographic names register lists 31 official names on the water and its islands: 19 islands, three bays, one rock, one point on an island and four rivers. A further 2 named points stand on the mainland shore.
Bays 3
- Carman Bay
- Northeast Bay
- St. Peter Bay
Shoals and rocks 1
- Gull Rock
Points on the shore 2
- Cemetery Point
- Poplar Point
Nearby lakes
- Porcupine Lake17 km away
- Frederick House Lake23 km away
- Watabeag Lake39 km away
- Mistinikon Lake56 km away
Questions about Night Hawk Lake
- How deep is Night Hawk Lake?
Its deepest charted contour is 4.6 meters, and the water within it is deeper.
- How big is Night Hawk Lake?
Its surface covers 108.8 square kilometers and it holds 46 islands. Of its 164 kilometers of shoreline, 147 kilometers is the mainland shore and 17 kilometers is the shore of the islands.
A print of Night Hawk Lake
Night Hawk Lake has not yet been drawn as a print. The lakes drawn so far are on the lake maps page, and a print of Night Hawk Lake can be requested by email; whether it can be drawn is confirmed before any payment.
Ask about a Night Hawk Lake printLooking at a property on Night Hawk 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.
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 Night Hawk 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Aerial photography: Ontario Imagery Web Map Service, Open Government Licence – Ontario, drawing this frame from Central Ontario Orthophotography Project 2021, Forest Resource Inventory T2 (T2) 2018-2027, 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.
- 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. All public domain.