Thunder Bay District, Ontario

Hawkeye Lake

A cold lake of 3.8 square kilometers northwest of Thunder Bay, with a deepest charted contour of 36.6 meters from the 1976 survey and no islands. The aquatic resource record lists 11 species, lake trout and lake whitefish among them.

Surface: 3.8 km²
Shoreline: 16 km
Islands: 0
Charted depth: 36.6 m
Depth contours: 16

All figures are derived from Ontario’s survey records.

Where Hawkeye Lake is

Hawkeye Lake lies in the District of Thunder Bay.

How deep is Hawkeye Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Hawkeye Lake is 36.6 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 16 depth contours for Hawkeye Lake.

The deepest charted contour on Hawkeye Lake, 36.6 meters, from the 1976 survey. The circle marks the centre of that contour, and the water within it is deeper. The survey’s sixteen 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.

Hawkeye Lake has 3 Lake Partner monitoring sites. Three have reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned. All are classified oligotrophic.

Lake Partner sites on Hawkeye Lake with a quotable phosphorus record
Site	Location	Years	Last sampled	Classification
1907/1	SW end, deep spot	10	2022	oligotrophic
1907/3	E end, deep spot	9	2022	oligotrophic
1907/2	Mid Lake, deep spot	8	2022	oligotrophic

The longest record is held by site 1907/1 at SW end, deep spot, sampled over 10 springs to 2022. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 7.63 micrograms per litre, within the oligotrophic band, which extends to 10. The site’s 4 clarity readings give a median Secchi depth of 2.8 meters.

Median Secchi depth by year at site 1907/1, 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 Hawkeye Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 11 fish species in Hawkeye Lake. The province classes the lake as cold water. The record took effect on 25 March 2015, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then. The province’s other records for the lake name two further species, rainbow trout and brook trout. They appear in the records below.

Seven of the thirteen species in the province’s records

Lake Trouttrout and whitefish
Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
Northern Pikepike
Walleyeperch
Yellow Perchperch
Smallmouth Basssunfish
Burbotcod

The other six species in the province’s records
Family	Species
Trout and whitefish	brook trout, rainbow trout
Perch	logperch
Sucker	white sucker
Smelt	rainbow smelt
Other	perches

Stocking history

Ontario’s stocking records for Hawkeye Lake run from 1950 to 1991 and hold 31 releases. Lake Trout account for most of the fish: 39,777 released in twelve of the years between 1950 and 1982. The last recorded release was 2,500 brook trout fingerlings in 1991.

Fish released into Hawkeye Lake, 1950 to 1991
Species	Years	Years with a release	Fish released
Lake Trout	1950 to 1982	12	39,777
Brook Trout	1962 to 1991	11	36,400
Rainbow Trout	1958 to 1958	1	1,500

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

Eating the fish

The 2025 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for four species taken from Hawkeye Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Fowler Twp., Thunder Bay 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	2	0
Sensitive population	0	0

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

Northern Pike Mercury
Length, cm	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50
General population	16	16	12
Sensitive population	4	4	4

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

Fisheries Management Zone 6

Hawkeye Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 6. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

Zone 6 seasons and limits, 2026
Species	Open season	Sport licence	Conservation licence
Atlantic Salmon	Open all year	1	0
Brook Trout	4th Sat. in Apr. – Labour Day	5, not more than 1 greater than 30 cm (11.8 in.)	2, not more than 1 greater than 30 cm (11.8 in.)
Brown Trout	Open all year	5	2
Channel Catfish	Open all year	12	6
Crappie	Open all year	15	10
Lake Trout	Jan. 1 – Sept. 30	2, not more than 1 greater than 56 cm (22 in.) from Sept. 1 – Sept. 30; no size limit rest of year	1, no size limit
Lake Whitefish	Open all year	12	6
Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass or any combination	Open all year	4	2
Muskellunge	3rd Sat. in June – Dec. 15	1, must be greater than 91 cm (36 in.)	0
Northern Pike	Open all year	4, not more than 1 greater than or equal to 70 cm (27.6 in.)	2, not more than 1 greater than or equal to 70 cm (27.6 in.)
Pacific Salmon	Open all year	5	2
Rainbow Trout	Open all year	1	0
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 Hawkeye Lake. Zone-wide, Smelt may not be used as bait or possessed for use as bait except where exceptions apply.

Nearby lakes

Dog Lake10 km away
Whitefish Lake66 km away
Upper Shebandowan Lake74 km away
Lac des Mille Lacs81 km away

All lakes

Questions about Hawkeye Lake

How deep is Hawkeye Lake?
Its deepest charted contour is 36.6 meters, and the water within it is deeper.
How big is Hawkeye Lake?
Its surface covers 3.8 square kilometers, with 16 kilometers of shoreline.
What fish are in Hawkeye Lake?
Ontario’s aquatic resource records name eleven species, among them lake trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, lake whitefish and yellow perch. The lake’s spawning, consumption and stocking records also name rainbow trout and brook trout.
Is the water clear?
All three monitoring sites with a phosphorus status are classified oligotrophic, the clearest of the province’s three bands.

A print of Hawkeye Lake

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

Ask about a Hawkeye Lake print

Looking at a property on Hawkeye 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 Hawkeye 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 Hawkeye 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.
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 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; Timothy Knepp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. All public domain.