A chain of three linked stillwaters in the West Kootenay, each tracked and stocked as its own basin. The Lower basin carries the longest release record on file in the region, back to 1915, and all three basins are still topped up with rainbow trout every year.

Confirm the current BC freshwater fishing regulations (Region 4, Kootenay) for Champion Lakes, including any bait, motor or boat-launch restrictions specific to each basin, before you fish. Check the official synopsis before you go.

Champion Lakes is a chain of three small stillwaters in the West Kootenay, within the Lower Arrow Lake drainage group. Provincial stocking records track each basin on its own: Champion 1st (the Lower basin, and the coordinate this page uses), Champion 2nd and Champion 3rd. The Lower basin is the only one with a lake survey on file, run at max depth 13 m, mean depth 2.4 m and Secchi clarity 5.5 m over roughly 10.2 hectares of surface area, a Province of BC Fish Inventories Data Queries survey from 1982-07-30.

For an angler judging the fishing, the release record is most of the story. The Lower basin has 62 recorded releases from 1915 to 2026, about 303,800 fish, the longest stocking history of the three. It opened with wild Gerrard Creek-strain rainbow trout fry in 1915, then took a run of Westslope cutthroat trout eyed eggs and fry between 1932 and 1938 (Mineral and Cranbrook hatchery stock) that was never repeated. Every release since has been rainbow trout, most recently 2,000 Blackwater R-strain yearlings on 2026-05-25.

Champion 2nd and Champion 3rd carry their own separate records, both rainbow trout only: the second basin has 48 releases since 1980 (about 135,500 fish), the third has 50 releases since 1980 (about 129,800 fish). All three basins were stocked again in 2026, so this is an active program, not a legacy one. The two programs read differently on the water, though: the Lower and second basins get small Blackwater R-strain yearlings (10-12 g at release) that grow through the season, while the third basin gets Fraser Valley-strain fish stocked at catchable size, roughly 230 g, about half a pound, right before the season opens, a straight put-and-take plant rather than a put-grow one.

No water-specific fishing reports are documented for Champion Lakes, so the tactics here follow the regional default for a small, shallow West Kootenay put-grow stillwater rather than confirmed local advice. Early in the season, a chironomid fished under an indicator over the shoals and shallow margins is the standard approach on lakes this size and depth. As the shallows warm, moving to leech patterns and attractor retrieves along the Lower basin's deeper hole (down to 13 m) is the usual next move. On the third basin, freshly planted catchable-size rainbow tend to hit searching patterns hard right after a stocking truck visit, so an attractor or leech fished soon after a release date is worth trying before the fish get pressured. Small-lake stillwater technique applies generally; confirm forage, structure and timing locally before building a day around this water.

No boat launch, parking or shoreline access is documented for Champion Lakes in the sources reviewed here. Confirm access, any private-land crossings, and current motor or ice-fishing restrictions locally before planning a trip; the map panel shows where the Lower basin sits in its drainage.