Kenora District, Ontario

Kakagi Lake

One hundred and twelve square kilometers of cold water in Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls, with 368 islands and 475 kilometers of shoreline, charted to 54.9 meters in the 1955 survey. Five muskellunge spawning areas are mapped, and the aquatic resource record lists 35 species.

Surface: 112.3 km²
Shoreline: 475 km250 mainland + 225 islands
Islands: 368
Charted depth: 54.9 m
Depth contours: 291

All figures are derived from Ontario’s survey records.

Where Kakagi Lake is

Kakagi Lake lies in the District of Kenora, within the Township of Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls.

How deep is Kakagi Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Kakagi Lake is 54.9 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 291 depth contours for Kakagi Lake.

The deepest charted contour on Kakagi Lake, 54.9 meters, from the 1955 survey. The circle marks the centre of that contour, and the water within it is deeper. The survey’s 291 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.

Kakagi Lake has 2 Lake Partner monitoring sites. One of them has reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned, and is classified oligotrophic.

Lake Partner sites on Kakagi Lake with a quotable phosphorus record
Site	Location	Years	Last sampled	Classification
2218/2	Mid lake, deep spot	3	2018	oligotrophic

The longest record is held by site 2218/2 at Mid lake, deep spot, sampled over 3 springs to 2018. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 5.47 micrograms per litre, within the oligotrophic band, which extends to 10.

Fish in Kakagi Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 34 fish species in Kakagi Lake. The province classes the lake as cold water. The record took effect on 23 April 2019, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then. The province’s other records for the lake name one further species, walleye. It appears in the records below.

Eleven of the 35 species in the province’s records

Lake Trouttrout and whitefish
Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
Ciscotrout and whitefish
Northern Pikepike
Muskellungepike
Yellow Perchperch
Smallmouth Basssunfish
Rock Basssunfish
Pumpkinseedsunfish
Burbotcod
Brown Bullheadcatfish

The other twenty-four species in the province’s records, with one observation the province could not identify
Family	Species
Perch	iowa darter, johnny darter, johnny darter x tesselated darter, logperch, walleye
Sucker	white sucker
Minnow	blackchin shiner, blacknose shiner, bluntnose minnow, carps and minnows, common shiner, emerald shiner, fathead minnow, mimic shiner, northern pearl dace, northern redbelly dace, spottail shiner
Sculpin	deepwater sculpin, mottled sculpin, slimy sculpin
Stickleback	brook stickleback, ninespine stickleback
Trout-perch	trout-perch
Other	northern sunfish

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 11 fish spawning records within the Kakagi Lake outline, for two species, all of them mapped areas. Every record is recorded as verified and presently suitable, and none is classed as sensitive.

By number of records

By area mapped

Lake Trout6 areas29.0 ha
Muskellunge5 areas20.5 ha

Spawning records mapped by the province within the Kakagi Lake outline. A record under 100 square meters is drawn as a dot; a spawning area is drawn as the outline mapped. One colour per species, the same as the bars and the list above.

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 Kakagi Lake run from 1946 to 1962 and hold 12 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 5,200,000 released in four of the years between 1952 and 1957. The last recorded release was 10,000 lake trout fingerlings in 1962.

Fish released into Kakagi Lake, 1946 to 1962
Species	Years	Years with a release	Fish released
Walleye	1952 to 1957	4	5,200,000
Lake Trout	1946 to 1962	8	55,000

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

Eating the fish

The 2025 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for seven species taken from Kakagi Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Kenora 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 Arsenic, Mercury, PCB
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	16	12	12	12	8	4
Sensitive population	16	16	16	16	12	8	4	4	4	4	0

Lake Whitefish no contaminant listed
Length, cm	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55
General population	32	32	32	32	32
Sensitive population	16	16	16	16	16

Northern Pike Mercury
Length, cm	50 to 55	55 to 60	60 to 65	65 to 70	70 to 75	over 75
General population	16	16	16	12	12	4
Sensitive population	8	4	4	4	4	0

Muskellunge Mercury
Length, cm	over 75
General population	4
Sensitive population	0

Smallmouth Bass Mercury
Length, cm	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50
General population	16	16	8	8	8
Sensitive population	8	4	4	4	0

Burbot Mercury
Length, cm	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55	55 to 60
General population	16	16	8	8	8
Sensitive population	4	4	4	4	4

White Sucker no contaminant listed
Length, cm	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50
General population	32	32	32	32
Sensitive population	32	32	32	16

Fisheries Management Zone 5

Kakagi Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 5. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

Zone 5 seasons and limits, 2026
Species	Open season	Sport licence	Conservation licence
Brook Trout	Open all year	5	2
Brown Trout	Open all year	5	2
Crappie	Open all year	10	5
Lake Trout	Jan. 1 – Sept. 30	2, not more than 1 greater than 56 cm (22 in.) from Sept. 1 – Sept. 30	1, no size limit
Lake Whitefish	Open all year	12	6
Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass or any combination	Open all year	4; Must be less than 35 cm (13.8 in.) from Jan. 1 – June 30	2; Must be less than 35 cm (13.8 in.) from Jan. 1 – June 30
Muskellunge	3rd Sat. in June – Dec. 15	1, must be greater than 102 cm (40 in.)	0
Northern Pike	Open all year	4; none greater than 75 cm (29.5 in.)	2; none greater than 75 cm (29.5 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. Zone-wide, Smelt may not be used as bait or possessed for use as bait.

Exceptions for Kakagi Lake itself, 2026
Species	Open season	Sport licence	Conservation licence	Size limit
Muskellunge	Zone-wide	Zone-wide	Zone-wide	Must be greater than 137 cm (54 in.)
Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass or any combination	Zone-wide	0; from Jan. 1 – June 30	0; from Jan. 1 – June 30	—

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

Islands and names

Kakagi Lake contains 368 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, 27 of them over 10 hectares and 99 under a tenth of a hectare.

The ten largest islands, numbered to the table. Areas are measured on the province’s outline.

The ten largest islands
	Island	Hectares
1	unnamed	114.8
2	unnamed	74.8
3	unnamed	68.9
4	unnamed	45.6
5	unnamed	41.9
6	unnamed	41.6
7	unnamed	37.6
8	unnamed	36.7
9	unnamed	30.5
10	unnamed	29.6

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 5 official names on the water and its islands: five bays. A further 3 named points stand on the mainland shore.

Bays 5

Blacky Bay
Emm Bay
Muskie Bay
Peninsula Bay
Young Bay

Points on the shore 3

Chase Point
Cliff Point
Tex Point

Nearby lakes

Dryberry Lake37 km away
Eagle Lake71 km away
Wabigoon Lake100 km away
Dinorwic Lake106 km away

All lakes

Questions about Kakagi Lake

How deep is Kakagi Lake?
Its deepest charted contour is 54.9 meters, and the water within it is deeper.
How big is Kakagi Lake?
Its surface covers 112.3 square kilometers and it holds 368 islands. Of its 475 kilometers of shoreline, 250 kilometers is the mainland shore and 225 kilometers is the shore of the islands.
What fish are in Kakagi Lake?
Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 34 species, among them lake trout, smallmouth bass, northern pike, muskellunge, lake whitefish and yellow perch. The lake’s spawning, consumption and stocking records also name walleye.
Is the water clear?
The one monitoring site with a phosphorus status is classified oligotrophic, the clearest of the province’s three bands.

A print of Kakagi Lake

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

Ask about a Kakagi Lake print

Looking at a property on Kakagi 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 Kakagi 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 Kakagi 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.
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.
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, 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.
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; Ellen Edmonson and Hugh Chrisp, New York State Conservation Department; Timothy Knepp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. All public domain.