A stocked stillwater on the west side of the Columbia River, southwest of Brisco in the upper Columbia Valley. Nearly ninety years of hatchery records show two very different programs: decades of cutthroat trout that ended in 1990, and an annual rainbow trout put-and-take plant that has run every spring since 2017.

Big Fish Lake is a stocked stillwater on the west side of the Columbia River, southwest of Brisco in the upper Columbia Valley. No area or depth survey is on record for the lake, so treat its size and structure as unconfirmed until a local report or field visit fills that in.

For an angler judging what's actually swimming in Big Fish Lake today, the release record tells two different stories. Provincial hatchery records run from 1938 to 2026 and log 52 releases, totalling roughly 626,000 fish. The earlier and much larger share of that is cutthroat trout: eyed eggs and fry logged simply as "Cutthroat Trout" in 1938-1940, then as westslope cutthroat trout from 1941 through 1990 (Kiakho, Palmer Bar Creek, Connor and Blue strains), 37 releases totalling about 598,000 fish. That program stopped in 1990 and has not resumed, so any cutthroat caught in the lake today are legacy or naturally recruiting fish, not a recent plant.

Rainbow trout are the active program now: 15 releases since 2009, starting as occasional fall-catchable plants (2009-2014) before settling into an annual spring release every year since 2017. The most recent release, in May 2026, put 1,000 Fraser Valley-strain spring catchable rainbow (averaging about 238 g) into the lake, matching similar spring plants back through 2017. In practice, Big Fish Lake now fishes as a straightforward stocked-rainbow put-and-take water, its name and history notwithstanding.

As a put-and-take fishery built on freshly stocked spring-catchable rainbow, expect fish holding in the shallower margins and cruising the shoreline rather than sitting on a deep thermocline. A standard small-lake stillwater approach is the sensible starting point: a chironomid under an indicator worked over any shoal, and a leech or attractor pattern along whatever drop-off structure the lake holds, until a local report narrows the tactics further.

No confirmed boat launch, parking area or public access point has been found for Big Fish Lake. Treat it as an access-check water: confirm a put-in and any private-land or seasonal restrictions locally before committing a day to it.