Lake Trout

Native from Shuswap Lake northward; introduced south of there, including the lower Columbia and lower Kootenay. In the Kootenays, every lake trout is an introduced fish and the ministry wants to know about it. Learn the forked tail so you can tell one from a bull trout, note where you caught it, and report it.

The BC Conservation Data Centre gives the native range as the upper and middle Fraser system; the upper Skeena, Nass, Iskut–Stikine, Taku and Yukon drainages; and the Peace and Liard systems. It considers populations south of Shuswap Lake probably introduced. The BC Lake Stewardship Society adds that lake trout are absent from Vancouver Island and the Columbia system as native fish, but have been introduced to the lower Columbia, lower Kootenay and Okanagan regions. The Province’s notable-fish page describes the split in habitat: in the north lake trout are found in shallow as well as deep lakes, while in the south, where stocks from eastern North America were introduced, they seek the cooler water of deep lakes.

Introduced, unwanted and few. Our guide’s listings name lake trout for Trout Lake, the Pend-d’Oreille River and a handful of creeks on the lower Columbia and Arrow Lakes, among them Beaver Creek, Tillicum Creek and Tonkawatla Creek. Most of the creek listings are inferred from the water they drain to rather than from a record of a fish in the creek itself. None of them is a lake trout fishery, and we found no government source describing an established lake trout population in any of these waters. What the province does say is that it wants every Kootenay lake trout reported.

The BC Lake Stewardship Society describes lake trout as fish of cold water, around 10°C, living mostly in large, deep lakes, though in northern BC they also occur in shallow lakes and rivers. Young lake trout eat zooplankton, then crustaceans, snails, leeches and insects; large ones turn to fish, including kokanee, whitefish, burbot and sculpins, and have been known to take mice and shrews. They grow slowly and mature late: from around five years in southern areas to more than twenty in northern BC. The oldest on record, the society notes, was seventy years old.

That diet is why an introduced lake trout matters in a Kootenay lake. The Region 4 regulations warn that lake trout could affect native fish populations if they colonize, and a long-lived predator of kokanee and whitefish is exactly the kind of fish that could.

The bull trout is the char you will usually catch in the Kootenays, and it is the one to rule out. The province’s species identification page in the regulations synopsis marks the lake trout by its deeply forked tail, and the bull trout by its large, broad, flattened head and an upper jaw that curves down. Both are dark fish with pale spots. A brook trout carries worm-like markings on its back and red spots in blue halos on its flank. A coastal or northern Dolly Varden does not occur in the Kootenays at all.

If you are unsure, photograph the whole fish with the tail spread, and report it anyway.

Nobody should be setting out to catch lake trout in the Kootenays. In the north, where they are native, fly fishing for them is a matter of timing and depth. The BC Lake Stewardship Society’s note that they prefer water around 10°C explains the pattern: when the surface warms in summer the fish go deep, out of reach of most fly lines, and the fly angler’s chances come when the lakes are cold near the surface, in spring and again in autumn. A sinking line and a baitfish streamer, a Woolly Bugger or a Muddler Minnow imitating the baitfish and fry they eat, is the usual approach; see streamer fishing.

The BC Lake Stewardship Society gives the spawning season as autumn, from September to November.

In Region 4 Kootenay, the 2025–2027 synopsis has no quota written for lake trout by name. Lake trout are char, and the regional trout and char quota applies; check the water-specific tables for exceptions. Above all, the synopsis asks you to report any lake trout caught in the Kootenay Region to a ministry office, and reminds anglers that it is illegal to move fish into any water in BC.

Elsewhere the rules are specific and vary a great deal. Several regions write lake trout into their regional quotas, and many northern and Cariboo lakes carry their own lake trout limits, size rules and autumn catch-and-release periods. Read the current BC Freshwater Fishing Regulations for the region and water before you fish.

No. The Kootenay Region’s own regulations say they are not a native fish there, and the BC Conservation Data Centre places their native range from Shuswap Lake northward.

Note where and when, take a photo, and report it to a ministry office, as the 2025–2027 synopsis asks. Check the current rules before deciding whether to keep it.

The BC Lake Stewardship Society says more than 20 kg in BC lakes, and the world record it cites is 46.3 kg.