Dutch Lake sits in the middle of Clearwater, right beside Highway 5, with a sandy beach and water lilies along its edges. The trout hatchery that stocks lakes across the Interior is just down the road, and it will lend you a rod for nothing. Most people treat the lake as a swim and a paddle on the way to Wells Gray. The surprise is in the water under the canoes: at least one rainbow put in at pan size has turned up years later as a heavy fish.
The lake fishes as two lakes, one on top of the other. Around the rim runs a shallow band of weed and lily pads, where the trout feed. The middle is deeper and open, and once summer warms the top, that is where the
kokanee school.
Start at the edges. Early in the season, after the ice goes, rainbows cruise the weed lines looking for chironomids and mayflies, and a canoe lets you sit just off the lilies and cast in to them. The hatchery stocks the lake each spring, so most of the trout you meet then are recent arrivals. The few that have lasted a winter or two are the ones to hope for, and they are the reason to keep fishing after the first quick fish.
The open middle is for kokanee. They sit deeper than you’d guess, below the warm layer at the top, and finding them calls for a full-sinking line and patience more than a perfect cast. The middle is also where a canoe earns its rent, since you can work slowly back and forth over the deep water and count your fly down.
Dawn and dusk are the parts most visitors miss. By day the beach and the paddlers have the lake. At first and last light the edges go quiet, and the rainbows come up onto the shallows to feed.
Spend an evening here before you drive north to the rivers and the park lakes.
Fish in this water
Each fish is rated by its strongest evidence. A rating says how sure we are a fish is here, not how many there are, whether it is worth fishing for or whether you may keep it.
Likely
Older records here, recent stocking, a local guide or fly shop, a guide listing, or recent records on connected water nearby.
When to fish it
On the lakes around Clearwater the ice usually goes in May, and the first weeks after it are often the best fishing of the year, with chironomids, then mayflies into June. Damsels follow, and the big traveller sedges can bring fish to the top from late June into early July. In the heat of July and August, fly anglers around here head for lakes higher up. On Dutch, follow the trout down the slope by day. September brings the fish back to the shallows on backswimmers and boatmen until the ice comes in late in the autumn.
How to fish it
Use one fly on the line and change it rather than adding another. After ice-out, anchor off the edge of the weed where the shoal drops away, hang a chironomid under an indicator just off the bottom, and let the breeze move it. If nothing takes, raise the fly a little at a time until you find the fish. When mayflies hatch, change to a Pheasant Tail nymph on a slow hand-twist retrieve, or a size 12 Grey Wulff if fish are rising. In damsel time, strip a damsel nymph slowly from the lilies toward deep water. Through summer, put a leech on a sinking line and crawl it along the drop-off. For kokanee, troll a small bright fly slowly on a full-sink line through the middle of the lake. If they won’t take, change colour before you change depth.