On the hillside above the west shore of Pillar Lake, a tall column of conglomerate stands with a flat boulder balanced on its top. The story told about it says the stone will fall the day a water spirit breaks his promise, and it hasn’t fallen yet. Below it, once the ice goes out in April, chironomids start coming off the shallows at the north end of the lake, and the rainbows move up onto the shoals to meet them.
It is a small lake, and its shape is simple. The north end is a broad shelf of shallow water, the shoals where the insects are born and where most fly fishers end up. South of that the bottom falls away into the deeper middle of the lake, where fish go to sit out the heat. Two parts, then: the shoals and the deep water, with the drop-off between them doing most of the work.
Start on the north-end shoals in May and June. That is when the lake is at its best, with chironomids, damselflies, dragonflies and caddis all hatching through late spring and early summer, and the fish feeding shallow enough to see. Anchor along the edge where the shelf meets the drop and fish toward the shallows.
The deeper water is the lake in July and August. The rainbows drop down and the shoals go quiet in the bright middle of the day, but the edges wake up again in the evening, and the drop-off is where you find fish that everyone fishing the shallows has stopped looking for.
The way in is a back road north of Falkland, past a smaller lake with a campground and on to a day-use site on the shore with a launch for cartoppers. It is a lake for a canoe, a pram or a float tube, and it gets light to moderate pressure.
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.
Water and habitat
Pillar is a small, fairly deep lake with a treed shore, and the pillar and its little provincial park on the slope above. The north-end shoals are the food shelf, where the water warms first in spring and the insects hatch. The trout cruise the edge of that shelf, where they can feed in the shallows and drop back into deep, cool water in a few fin strokes. Through midsummer, warm surface water pushes them down along the drop-off, and they come up again as the light goes. The lake freezes from about November to early April.
How to fish it
Anchor on the shoal edge, bow and stern if you can, so the boat doesn’t swing. Start with a chironomid pupa under an indicator, set so the fly hangs just off the bottom, and cast toward the shallow side of the edge. If the indicator sits still for twenty minutes, shorten or lengthen the depth before you change the fly; depth matters more than pattern. Then change the colour or size of the pupa, and after that move along the edge.
When damsels are hatching, switch to a damsel nymph on a slow-sinking or intermediate line and bring it back in short, slow pulls across the shoal. A dragonfly nymph fished the same way, slower and deeper, is the change when nothing is moving. On early-summer evenings, watch for caddis on the surface and swap to a dry or a pupa stripped just under the film. In midsummer, fish the drop-off with a sinking line and work the fly up the slope. One fly on the line, always.
Access and safety
From Highway 97 at Falkland, turn north onto the Chase-Falkland Road, a good two-wheel-drive road. Joyce Lake comes first, a few minutes short of Pillar, with a recreation-site campground and a boat launch. Pillar Lake Recreation Site, about 11 km north of Falkland, is day use only, with no overnight camping, and has a cartop launch near the shore. A resort on the lake has had cabins and RV sites; check that it is operating before you plan a night there. Coming from the Okanagan, you can reach Falkland by driving north on Highway 97 from Vernon.
Test the ice before you walk out on it in late fall or early spring, and stay off it if you don’t know it.