Echoes Lakes carry no water-specific listing in the current synopsis, so the regional defaults apply: trout/char daily quota 5, a single barbless hook is recommended, and a valid BC freshwater licence is required for anglers 16 and up. Confirm any in-season or water-specific changes at gov.bc.ca before you fish.

Two BC lake surveys, both run 11 August 1996, cover the pair separately. The North basin (waterbodyIdentifier 00481SMAR) is the smaller and shallower of the two: 7.45 hectares, a maximum depth of 6.5 m, a mean depth of just 1.2 m, and Secchi clarity to 6.5 m, effectively clear to the bottom. The South basin (00499SMAR) is bigger and holds real depth: 13 hectares, a maximum of 12.3 m, a mean of 3.6 m, and clarity to 3.8 m. Both sit around 883-884 m elevation with an alkaline surface pH, 8.6 in the North basin and 8.0 in the South, water chemistry typical of productive East Kootenay stillwaters.

For an angler weighing whether to make the drive, the stocking record is most of what there is to go on. Between them, the two basins carry 146 recorded releases, the longest documented history of any water in the immediate area: the South basin's record dates back to 1926, when the province put in 5,000 Gerrard Creek-strain rainbow trout fry, while the North basin's record starts later, in 1987. Rainbow trout is the constant on both, but the South basin also carried brook trout seven times between 1944 and 1974, and kokanee four times between 1941 and 1952. Neither has gone back in since. The modern program, steady for close to a decade, is Pennask-strain rainbow trout yearlings released every spring, roughly 1,000 into the North basin and 2,000 into the South, most recently 14 April 2026.

That split, twice as many fish into the bigger, deeper South basin, tracks the basins' relative size rather than any real difference in program: both run as an active put-and-take fishery, topped up annually rather than left to natural recruitment.

With no dedicated local fishing report on file for either basin, fish them on the standard small-lake stillwater plan: a chironomid under an indicator over the shoals and shallow margins in spring, moving to a Woolly Bugger or balanced leech worked along the drop-off, the South basin's 12.3 m hole in particular, as the shallows warm through summer. Fish caught this season are last year's or the year-before's yearling plant, so expect the 20-30 cm class typical of second- and third-year put-grow rainbow trout in similarly managed East Kootenay lakes, with the odd older holdover running larger.

No boat launch, parking area or access road is documented for Echoes Lakes in the sources reviewed here. Confirm the route and any private-land crossings locally before committing a day to either basin; the map panel shows where the pair sits in the St. Mary River drainage.