Peterborough County, Ontario
Gold Lake
Just over three square kilometers of water in North Kawartha and Trent Lakes, with five islands and a deepest charted contour of 36.6 meters from the 1969 survey. Six lake trout spawning areas are mapped.
- Surface
- 3.3 km²
- Shoreline
- 26 km23 mainland + 3 islands
- Islands
- 5
- Charted depth
- 36.6 m
- Depth contours
- 25
All figures are derived from Ontario’s survey records.
Where Gold Lake is
Gold Lake lies in the County of Peterborough, with shoreline in the Township of North Kawartha and the Municipality of Trent Lakes.
How deep is Gold Lake?
The deepest mapped contour on Gold Lake is 36.6 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 25 depth contours for Gold 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.
Gold Lake has 1 Lake Partner monitoring site, which has yet reported phosphorus for the three years the province requires before a status is assigned.
Fish in Gold Lake
Ontario’s aquatic resource records list no species for Gold Lake. The province’s other records for the lake name one species, lake trout. It appears in the records below.
One species in the province’s records
Lake Trouttrout and whitefish
Spawning areas
Ontario maps 6 fish spawning records within the Gold Lake outline: 6 lake trout spawning areas covering 0.06 hectares.
By number of records
By area mapped
- Lake Trout6 areas600 m²
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.
Fisheries Management Zone 15
Gold Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 15. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone. Zone 15 covers central Ontario from Georgian Bay to the Ottawa River, bounded to the north by the Pickerel River, Highway 522 and the northern edge of Algonquin Park. It takes in Parry Sound, Huntsville, Bracebridge, Bancroft, Pembroke and Renfrew, and the whole of Algonquin Provincial Park. The province describes it as a zone of many natural lake trout and brook trout lakes, with a well-developed road network and moderate angling effort.
| Species | Open season | Sport licence | Conservation licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brook Trout | Jan. 1 – Sept. 30 | 5 | 2 |
| Brown Trout | Open all year | 5 | 2 |
| Channel Catfish | Open all year | 12 | 6 |
| Crappie | Open all year | 30 | 10 |
| Lake Trout | Jan. 1 – Sept. 30 | 2 | 1 |
| Lake Whitefish | Open all year | 12 | 6 |
| Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass or any combination | 4th Sat. in June – Nov. 30 | 6 | 2 |
| Muskellunge | 1st Sat. in June – Dec. 15 | 1, must be greater than 91 cm (36 in.) | 0 |
| Northern Pike | Jan. 1 – Mar. 31 & 3rd Sat. in May – Dec. 31 | 6 | 2 |
| Pacific Salmon | Open all year | 5 | 2 |
| 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 – Mar. 15 & 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 Gold Lake.
| Where | Closed |
|---|---|
| Gold Lake – Cavendish Twp | No fishing from Jan. 1 – Fri. before 3rd Sat. in May & Dec. 1 – Dec. 31 |
| Cavendish Lake – Cavendish Twp | No fishing from Jan. 1 – Fri. before 3rd Sat. in May & Dec. 1 – Dec. 31 |
Gold Lake Ice Fishing
An ice hut on Gold Lake must be removed by March 31. Gold Lake lies in fisheries management zone 15, 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 15 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.
When the ice goes out
The ice has been recorded leaving Gold Lake in 26 springs between 1970 and 1995. The median date is April 21. The earliest recorded break-up is April 4 in 1981, and the latest is May 6 in 1978.
Across the 26 recorded springs the date has moved earlier by about 2.8 days each decade.
The record was contributed by Peter J. Dillon, Ontario Ministry of the Environment to the Global Lake and River Ice Phenology Database. It holds the day the ice left and carries no date for the day it formed, so it says nothing about when Gold Lake freezes.
Ice conditions
No public record reports the thickness or the condition of the ice on Gold Lake on any given day. Ontario publishes ice safety guidance for anyone going out on the ice, at ontario.ca.
Islands and names
Gold Lake contains 5 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, one of them over 10 hectares and two under a tenth of a hectare.
| Island | Hectares | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | unnamed | 24.1 |
| 2 | unnamed | 0.2 |
| 3 | unnamed | 0.1 |
| 4 | unnamed | 0.1 |
| 5 | unnamed | 0.0 |
Nearby lakes
- Mississagua Lake5 km away
- Catchacoma Lake5 km away
- Anstruther Lake5 km away
- Big Cedar Lake15 km away
Questions about Gold Lake
- How deep is Gold Lake?
Its deepest charted contour is 36.6 meters, and the water within it is deeper.
- How big is Gold Lake?
Its surface covers 3.3 square kilometers and it holds 5 islands. Of its 26 kilometers of shoreline, 23 kilometers is the mainland shore and 3 kilometers is the shore of the islands.
A print of Gold Lake
Gold Lake has not yet been drawn as a print. The lakes drawn so far are on the lake maps page, and a print of Gold Lake can be requested by email; whether it can be drawn is confirmed before any payment.
Ask about a Gold Lake printLooking at a property on Gold 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 Gold 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 Gold 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.
- Temperature
- The temperature band is the province’s record on eight research lakes near Dorset and is a range for the half-month. It is never a reading from Gold Lake, and a larger and deeper lake can warm later in spring and cool later in autumn than the lakes in the record. A satellite reading measures the surface on the day of the pass. Water below the surface layer is colder than any figure on this page, and cold-water shock can occur in water below about 15 degrees.
- 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.
- 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.
- Ice dates
- A break-up date is the day a lake was recorded as no longer completely covered by ice, and a freeze date is the day it was recorded as completely covered. Both are read from the shore. A winter carrying no date is a winter nobody recorded, and not a winter without ice. Observations were last contributed for 1995, and none have been added to the record since.
- Ice hut rules
- Removal dates and registration rules are set by fisheries management zone and change from time to time. The dates here were read from the province in September 2026. The province’s own fishing regulations are 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: Geospatial Ontario imagery, Open Government Licence – Ontario, released collections only.
- 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.
- Water temperature: Inland Lakes and Streams, Physical Conditions, Dorset Environmental Science Centre, Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Open Government Licence – Ontario, 1976 to 2025. Surface temperature: Landsat 8 and 9, U.S. Geological Survey, public domain.
- 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.
- Seasons and limits: Ontario recreational fishing regulations data, Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
- Fish plates: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. All public domain.
- Ice break-up dates: Benson, B., Magnuson, J. and Sharma, S. (2000), Global Lake and River Ice Phenology Database, Version 1, National Snow and Ice Data Center, doi 10.7265/N5W66HP8. This lake’s record contributed by Peter J. Dillon, Ontario Ministry of the Environment.
- Ice hut removal dates and registration: Ontario fishing regulations, read September 2026.