A West Kootenay stillwater in the Upper Arrow Lake watershed, stocked with rainbow trout nearly every year since 1952 and now carrying a steady annual plant of Blackwater-strain yearlings.

No water-specific exception is on record for Catherine Lake, so the regional default applies: trout/char 5 daily, with no more than 1 rainbow over 50 cm, and a freshwater licence is required for anglers 16 and over. Confirm current rules in the official synopsis before you fish.

Catherine Lake is a stocked stillwater in the Upper Arrow Lake watershed, sitting west of the lake itself and north of Fostall Creek in the West Kootenay. It is small but genuinely deep for its size: about 28.7 hectares of surface area dropping to a surveyed maximum of 42 m and averaging 19.5 m across the basin, with a surface pH of 8. That depth means the lake stratifies through summer much the way a far larger lake would, pushing fish down to cooler water once the surface warms.

For an angler judging whether the drive is worth it, the release record is the fishing report. Provincial hatchery records run from 1952 to 2026 and log 63 releases into Catherine Lake, totalling 192,100 rainbow trout; no other species is on record.

The program has changed shape twice over that history. From the 1950s through the 1990s it ran as a rotating fry, fingerling and eyed-egg plant under half a dozen strains, including Beaver, Pennask, Knouff, Spahomin Lake, Badger, Dragon and Sheridan. It shifted to yearling releases in 1999 under Pennask strain, moved to Gerrard strain from 2009, and since 2013 has settled on Blackwater strain. Every June since 2017 the lake has taken 2,000 Blackwater yearlings like clockwork, most recently on June 8, 2026 (2,000 fish, averaging 10.2 g). That consistency makes it a genuine put-grow fishery: this year's yearlings are next season's keepers.

No on-the-water report is on record for Catherine Lake, so the honest read comes from what the data shows: a small, deep, put-grow rainbow stillwater. That combination points toward classic stillwater tactics rather than anything lake-specific. Work a chironomid or balanced leech under an indicator over the shoals and drop-offs early in the season, using the standard chironomid under indicator rig, then expect the fish to push down toward cooler water at depth once the surface warms, the way hot-weather stillwater tactics call for on any lake this deep. Chironomids, leeches and scuds are the general stillwater forage base to build a fly box around until a local report says otherwise.

No boat launch, road access or parking information is on record for Catherine Lake. Confirm access locally before committing a day to it; the map panel shows exactly where the lake sits relative to Upper Arrow Lake and the nearest roads.