Late in June the big caddis start coming off Plateau Lake, and for a couple of weeks this is dry-fly water. The lake is clear enough to read from the boat: pale marl shoals, dark weed, and a deep stripe down the middle where the trout wait.
You earn it. The road in is steep and rough, best left to a high-clearance four-by-four, and nothing towed gets up it in comfort. That keeps the lake quiet: a handful of campsites on the west shore, cartop boats on the water, and the people who meant to come.
The shape is simple, and it does the work for you. Plateau is long and narrow and fed by springs. Shoals run out from both shores and fall away into one deep trench that runs the length of the lake, so wherever you are, the drop-off is only a cast or two away. That gives you three places to fish: the shoals, the trench edge, and the evening surface.
The trench edge is where to start. Trout hold along the drop, where the deep water is close for safety and the shoal food is just above them. Anchor on the shoal side and work a fly from the flat down over the lip.
The shoals come into their own in the caddis weeks of late June and early July, when the fish move up out of the trench onto the flats to feed.
The evening surface is the reward. The big travelling sedges of these Interior lakes fly late in the day, so stay out after supper and watch the shoal edges for the first wakes and rises. Fish that sat deep in the trench through the afternoon come up for them.
Before the drive, ask in a Kamloops fly shop how the lake came through the winter. It can lose fish under the ice in a hard year, and when it has, Peter Hope Lake down the hill is the easier day.
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.
How to fish it
One fly at a time. Through the day, fish a caddis pupa on a floating line with a long leader, let it sink near the bottom along the trench edge, and bring it up with a slow, steady pull, the way a pupa swims to the surface. If that draws nothing, try a Doc Spratley on the same retrieve; trout often take it for a sedge.
When adults are on the water, change to a sedge dry. These big caddis run across the surface, so a dead drift is often wrong: cast near a rise, let the fly sit, then pull it in short skating twitches so it leaves a wake. If fish swirl and miss, go back to the pupa, fished just under the film. Stand off the shoal in deeper water and cast in, so you don’t spook fish on the clear flats.
Access and safety
From Highway 5A, turn onto Peter Hope Lake Road, then left onto Plateau Lake Road at about 5.1 km. Follow it about 4.4 km, turn right, and go about 4.1 km more before turning down to the lake. It is very rough: high clearance and four-wheel drive, nothing towed, and not in the wet if you can help it. Backroad maps of this area are unreliable, so carry a GPS track. There is also a route from the north end of Stump Lake. The recreation site on the west side has six campsites, pit toilets and a cartop launch, and the pine-beetle trees have been cleared, so there is little shade.