Vermilion Lake

Where Vermilion Lake is

Vermilion Lake lies in the District of Sudbury, within the City of Greater Sudbury.

How deep is Vermilion Lake?

Vermilion Lake reaches a maximum recorded depth of 13.0 meters, determined from 18,957 soundings.

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.

Vermilion Lake has 5 Lake Partner monitoring sites. Two have reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned. One of those sites is classified oligotrophic and one mesotrophic.

The longest record is held by site 5657/3 at North part of bay, CGS VER-3, sampled over 7 springs to 2017. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 9.63 micrograms per litre, within the oligotrophic band, which extends to 10.

Fish in Vermilion Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 19 fish species in Vermilion Lake. The province classes the lake as warm water. The record took effect on 29 August 2017, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then.

Ten of the nineteen species in the province’s records

• Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
• Ciscotrout and whitefish
• Northern Pikepike
• Walleyeperch
• Yellow Perchperch
• Smallmouth Basssunfish
• Rock Basssunfish
• Pumpkinseedsunfish
• Bluegillsunfish
• Brown Bullheadcatfish

Stocking history

Ontario’s stocking records for Vermilion Lake run from 1952 to 2002 and hold 11 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 1,249,420 released in seven of the years between 1960 and 2002. The last recorded release was 12,000 walleye fingerlings in 2002.

The province’s current stocking programme, recorded from 2017, lists 238,975 walleye released into Vermilion Lake between 2017 and 2018.

Eating the fish

The 2025 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for five species taken from Vermilion Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Fairbank Twp., Sudbury 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

Fisheries Management Zone 10

Vermilion Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 10. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

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.

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

Vermilion Lake Ice Fishing

An ice hut on Vermilion Lake must be removed by March 31. Vermilion Lake lies in fisheries management zone 10, 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 10 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 Vermilion Lake on any given day. Ontario publishes ice safety guidance for anyone going out on the ice, at ontario.ca.

Islands and names

Vermilion Lake contains two islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, of 3.8 hectares, none of them named in the province’s register. One of them lies inside a wetland mapped in the province’s Wetland With Significance dataset. The largest of these, at 3.8 hectares, falls inside the Vermillion River Delta wetland.

Nearby lakes

• Fairbank Lake6 km away
• Windy Lake9 km away
• Long Lake29 km away
• Lake Panache32 km away

All lakes

Questions about Vermilion Lake

• How deep is Vermilion Lake?

  Its maximum recorded depth is 13 meters.

• How big is Vermilion Lake?

  Its surface covers 11.2 square kilometers and it holds 2 islands. Of its 33 kilometers of shoreline, 31 kilometers is the mainland shore and 2 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in Vermilion Lake?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name nineteen species, among them walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, lake whitefish and yellow perch.