Miller Lake

Where Miller Lake is

Miller Lake lies in the County of Bruce, within the Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula.

How deep is Miller Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Miller Lake is 6.1 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 6 depth contours for Miller Lake.

See also Ontario's Largest and Deepest Lakes

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 water samples for phosphorus analysis and measure water clarity through the summer with a Secchi disk. Most sites are sampled for phosphorus once a year, in spring, and some several times a year between spring and fall. Phosphorus in many lakes rises through the summer, so the two kinds of average are measured on different bases.

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 average phosphorus:

• Oligotrophic, below 10 micrograms per litre: clear water and low algae.
• Mesotrophic, from 10 to 20: moderately productive water, with more algae and weed growth than an oligotrophic lake but rarely a bloom.
• Eutrophic, above 20: nutrient-rich water, prone to algal blooms and low oxygen at depth.

Miller Lake has 1 Lake Partner monitoring site. It has reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned, and is classified oligotrophic.

The longest record is held by site 6870/1 at Mid Lake, deep spot, with phosphorus sampled several times a year over 14 years to 2025. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 9.6 micrograms per litre, within the oligotrophic band, which extends to 10.

A Secchi disk is a 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.

The 38 clarity readings at site 6870/1 give a median Secchi depth of 1.9 meters.

Median Secchi depth by year at site 6870/1

See also Lake Water Quality and Blue-Green Algae in Ontario

Miller Lake Weather

The weather page for Miller Lake carries the forecast over the water, wave heights across the lake, and the modelled water temperature.

Miller Lake weather

Water temperature

Ontario’s aquatic resource records class Miller Lake as a cool-water lake, with a mean depth of 2.51 meters against its maximum of 6.1.

A lake separates into layers through the summer where it is deep enough. Sunlight and wind warm and mix the upper few meters, and beneath a band of rapid cooling, the thermocline, the water stays cold. A shallow lake mixes to the bottom instead and warms through, sooner in spring and later into autumn.

No provincial monitoring station records water temperature on Miller Lake. The LastLake model computes the temperature of its surface water for each day from the daily mean air temperature at Environment Canada’s Tobermory Rcs climate station, 24 kilometers from the lake, or the next nearest station when its record is incomplete, and from the lake’s area of 318 hectares and its mean depth of 2.5 meters.

Each day’s figure carries the model’s typical error for that month on lakes of the same size. The figure in the chart below is the temperature near the surface, away from the shoreline. Bays, shallows and water deeper below the surface differ in temperature. Temperature is not measured when ice covers the lake. The weather page for Miller Lake carries the model’s figures for the past weeks and the coming week.

See also Lake Water Temperature in Ontario

Fish in Miller Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 17 fish species in Miller Lake. The province’s other records for the lake name one further species, largemouth bass. It appears in the records below.

Popular species in the province’s records

• Northern Pikepike
• Walleyeperch
• Yellow Perchperch
• Smallmouth Basssunfish
• Rock Basssunfish
• Pumpkinseedsunfish
• Brown Bullheadcatfish

Stocking history

Ontario’s stocking records for Miller Lake run from 1946 to 1977 and hold 15 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 400,000 released in three of the years between 1947 and 1977. The last recorded release was 50,000 walleye eggs in 1977.

The province’s record of stocking for recreational fishing, kept from 2016, lists no release into Miller Lake.

Eating the fish

The 2026 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for three species taken from Miller Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Lindsay Twp., Bruce Co. Each figure below is the most meals a month the guide advises for a fish of that length. Where mercury sets the advice, the figure falls as the fish gets longer, because mercury accumulates over a fish’s life. Where the guide has no result yet for certain contaminants at a location, it sets a precautionary limit of 16 meals a month. 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 16

Miller Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 16. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone. The province describes it as a zone of large river systems, with Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching its large lakes, carrying important recreational and tourism fisheries under high fishing effort.

Fisheries management zones around Miller Lake

See also Fishing Seasons in Ontario, Zone by Zone and Fish Stocking in Ontario Lakes

Miller Lake Ice Fishing

An ice hut on Miller Lake must be removed by March 15. The province sets dates for ice hut removal as a safety measure to ensure huts are removed before thawing occurs. One date applies to an entire fisheries management zone (FMZ). Miller Lake lies within FMZ 16.

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 FMZ 16 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 Miller Lake on any given day. Ontario publishes ice safety guidance for anyone going out on the ice, at ontario.ca.

See also Lake Ice in Ontario and When the Lakes Will Freeze This Winter

Islands and names

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 1 official name on the water and its islands: .

Nearby lakes

• Chesley Lake62 km away
• Lake Manitou89 km away
• Mindemoya Lake97 km away
• Harris Lake104 km away

All lakes

Questions about Miller Lake

• How deep is Miller Lake?

  Its deepest charted contour is 6.1 meters, and the water within it is deeper.

• How big is Miller Lake?

  Its surface covers 3.2 square kilometers, with 12 kilometers of shoreline.

• What fish are in Miller Lake?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name seventeen species, among them walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike and yellow perch. The lake’s spawning, consumption and stocking records also name largemouth bass.

• Is the water clear?

  The one monitoring site with a phosphorus status is classified oligotrophic, the clearest of the province’s three bands.