No Paulding Creek-specific exception appears in the checked Region 4 synopsis, so the regional defaults apply: streams are closed Apr 1 to Jun 14, trout and char are subject to the winter release period Nov 1 to Mar 31, and only a single barbless hook is permitted. Confirm the current synopsis and any in-season notices before you fish.

Paulding Creek's mouth sits at 50.52621, -116.51969. It runs stream order 3 (low on the 1-to-6+ scale where 1 is a headwater trickle and 6+ a river) across 12 mapped channel segments, a narrow channel with a median width of roughly 2.5 m, dropping at a very steep median gradient near 45.5%, with a peak mean-annual discharge of about 0.07 m³/s (very low flow). That combination, narrow, steep, low-volume, reads as a classic headwater tributary rather than a stream built for a day of fishing.

No fish records turn up for Paulding Creek in the provincial stream data covering the Horsethief Creek watershed, and no guide, report or online log names it specifically. That is not proof of an empty creek, small steep headwater tributaries are routinely under-surveyed, but it does mean Paulding Creek is honestly a regulation-and-access check rather than a confirmed fishery. If it does hold coldwater fish, the character of the wider Horsethief system points toward small-stream basics: mayflies, caddisflies and stoneflies imitations with summer terrestrials, but that is a hypothesis carried over from the surrounding watershed, not a record from Paulding Creek itself. If you do scout it, a small-stream box of Adams, Elk Hair Caddis and Stimulator on top, with a Hare's Ear or Prince Nymph underneath, covers the reasonable bases.

No named trailhead, road access point or put-in has been confirmed specifically for Paulding Creek. It sits within the wider Horsethief Creek drainage in the Columbia Valley, part of the tributary network feeding the upper Columbia system around the Radium-Invermere corridor, but the exact route in remains unconfirmed.