Bruce County, Ontario

Miller Lake

Three square kilometers of cool water on the Bruce Peninsula, with a deepest charted contour of 6.1 meters and 12 kilometers of shoreline. The aquatic resource record lists 17 species.

Surface: 3.2 km²
Shoreline: 12 km
Islands: 0
Charted depth: 6.1 m
Depth contours: 11

All figures are derived from Ontario’s survey records.

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 11 depth contours for Miller Lake.

The deepest charted contour on Miller Lake, 6.1 meters. The circle marks the centre of that contour, and the water within it is deeper. Of the survey’s eleven contours, five are its own shoreline contour, one ring around the mainland and one around each island it charted, and are left off, the outline being the Ontario Hydro Network’s; the other six 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.

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.

Lake Partner sites on Miller Lake with a quotable phosphorus record
Site	Location	Years	Last sampled	Classification
6870/1	Mid Lake, deep spot	14	2025	oligotrophic

The longest record is held by site 6870/1 at Mid Lake, deep spot, sampled over 14 springs to 2025. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 9.6 micrograms per litre, within the oligotrophic band, which extends to 10. The site’s 38 clarity readings give a median Secchi depth of 1.9 meters.

Median Secchi depth by year at site 6870/1, 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 Miller Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 17 fish species in Miller Lake. The province classes the lake as cool water. The record took effect on 14 October 2010, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then. The province’s other records for the lake name one further species, largemouth bass. It appears in the records below.

Seven of the eighteen species in the province’s records

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

The other eleven species in the province’s records
Family	Species
Perch	iowa darter
Sunfish	largemouth bass
Sucker	suckers, white sucker
Minnow	blacknose shiner, bluntnose minnow, common shiner, mimic shiner
Killifish	banded killifish
Mudminnow	central mudminnow
Other	perches

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.

Fish released into Miller Lake, 1946 to 1977
Species	Years	Years with a release	Fish released
Walleye	1947 to 1977	3	400,000
Smallmouth Bass	1946 to 1951	6	80,500
Largemouth Bass	1952 to 1957	6	70,000

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

Eating the fish

The 2025 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. 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

Walleye Mercury
Length, cm	15 to 20	20 to 25	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55
General population	32	32	32	32	32	16	16	12
Sensitive population	32	16	16	16	12	8	4	4

Northern Pike Mercury
Length, cm	40 to 45	45 to 50	50 to 55	55 to 60	60 to 65
General population	16	16	16	16	12
Sensitive population	8	8	8	8	4

Smallmouth Bass Mercury
Length, cm	20 to 25	25 to 30	30 to 35	35 to 40	40 to 45	45 to 50
General population	32	32	16	16	12	8
Sensitive population	32	16	8	4	4	0

Fisheries Management Zone 16

Miller Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 16. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone. Zone 16 is the most southerly inland zone in the province and takes in all of southwestern Ontario, with Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and London. 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.

Zone 16 seasons and limits, 2026
Species	Open season	Sport licence	Conservation licence
Atlantic Salmon	4th Sat. in Apr. to Sept 30	0	0
Brook Trout	4th Sat. in Apr. – Sept. 30	5	2
Brown Trout	4th Sat. in Apr. – Sept. 30	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 & 2nd Sat. in May – Dec. 31	6	2
Pacific Salmon	4th Sat. in Apr. – Sept. 30	5	2
Rainbow Trout	4th Sat. in Apr. – Sept. 30	2	1
Splake	Open all year	5	2
Sunfish	Open all year	50	25
Walleye and Sauger or any combination	Jan. 1 – Mar. 15 & 2nd 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 Miller Lake.

Miller Lake Ice Fishing

An ice hut on Miller Lake must be removed by March 15. Miller Lake lies in fisheries management zone 16, 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 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.

Islands and names

Official names

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

Nearby lakes

Lake Manitou89 km away
Mindemoya Lake97 km away
Lake Kagawong109 km away
Lake Eugenia112 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.

A print of Miller Lake

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

Ask about a Miller Lake print

Looking at a property on Miller 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 Miller 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 Miller 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.
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.
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.
Ice hut removal dates and registration: Ontario fishing regulations, read September 2026.