A modest stocked stillwater on the east side of Lake Koocanusa, just above where the Elk River meets it. Close to a century of stocking has cycled through brook trout, rainbow trout, kokanee and westslope cutthroat, and today the lake runs mostly on an annual kokanee program topped up with periodic rainbow.

Baynes Lake sits on the east side of Lake Koocanusa, the reservoir on the Kootenay River, just above where the Elk River meets it, southwest of Fernie. The province's 1959 survey puts it at 28.1 hectares, dropping to a maximum depth of 15.2 m and averaging 7.3 m across the basin, a modest but genuinely two-tier lake: shallow shoal water ringing a deeper central basin.

For an angler judging whether the lake is worth a stop, the release record is the fishing report. Provincial hatchery records run from 1932 to 2026 and log 81 releases into Baynes Lake, totalling roughly 830,000 fish. The bulk of that volume is historical: brook trout alone account for about 695,000 fish over 29 releases between 1951 and 1998, but the program stopped there and hasn't resumed. Rainbow trout have the longest continuous record, stocked on and off since 1932 and most recently in October 2025 (Blackwater-strain yearlings, 4,000 fish), for a total of about 102,000 fish over 42 releases. Westslope cutthroat trout appear once, a trial planting of just over 3,000 fish in October 2022.

Kokanee are the one program stocked every year now: nine releases since 2017, most recently 3,800 Norbury Creek-strain fry in April 2026, following similar spring plants in 2025 and prior years. That makes kokanee the freshest, most reliable cohort in the lake today, while any brook trout you catch are legacy fish from a program closed nearly three decades ago, not a recent plant.

Baynes Lake fishes as a straightforward stillwater: work the shoal-and-drop-off structure around the edges rather than the deep middle. Early in the season, hang a chironomid or a scud pattern under an indicator over the shoals (chironomid under indicator is the standard rig), then follow the hot weather stillwater approach once summer sets up a thermocline, pushing a woolly bugger or balanced leech on a sinking line along the drop into the 15 m basin. Chironomids, leeches and scuds are the general stillwater forage base to expect; kokanee will key on zooplankton and are best covered by trolling small spoons or flies over deeper water rather than sight-fishing the shoals.

No confirmed boat launch, parking area or shoreline access point has been found for Baynes Lake; the community of the same name sits nearby on the east side of Lake Koocanusa. Treat this as an access-check water: confirm a put-in and any private-land or seasonal restrictions locally before committing a day to it.