In late April the ice has only just let go of Roche Lake, and the first boats are already creeping along the shoreline, watching for a fish to roll before they drop anchor. Up here on the plateau above Kamloops a spring squall can come over the trees in minutes and hail the lake flat for an hour. When the sun comes back, so do the rainbows, taking chironomid pupae as fast as they rise.
Roche is a big plateau lake broken up by islands, and it fishes as two waters. The north-east end is shoal country: wide, pale marl flats and weed where the midges and shrimp live and the trout come up to eat them. The south arm, past the largest island, is smaller water with fewer boats on it.
The water everyone talks about is one big shoal at the north-east end that anglers call Monster Bay. Through May and June it is where the boats stack up, anchored in rows and hanging chironomids under indicators. Start there anyway. Fish of two and three pounds are ordinary, much bigger ones turn up, and the crowd tells you the shoal is switched on.
The south arm is where to go when the bay is busy or the wind is wrong. It is the place for a pram or a float tube, and its weed edges and drop-offs fish the same way as the north end.
The reward people miss comes in late summer, after the midge crowds have gone home. In a calm corner out of the wind, dragonflies hunt over the weed, and a dragonfly nymph drifted slowly across the shoal on a sinking line draws hard, sudden takes, often within minutes of starting a drift.
When Roche has given you what it will, other lakes are close: Horseshoe beside it, Bleeker over the hill to the north, and Dardanelles in the hills to the south by another road.
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.
Confirmed
Recorded on this water in the last 15 years, or named for it by a fishery agency, its fishing rules or a fishing publication.
The shoals are the engine of the lake. Light reaches the marl bottom, weed grows, and nearly everything a trout eats lives in it, so fish move up onto the flats to feed and drop back to the edge where the shoal falls into deep water. On bright summer days the shallows warm and the fish sit deeper along that drop-off; in spring and again in autumn they feed right up on top. The shoreline is reedy with very little room for shore fishing, so this is boat water.
The south arm has its own rule: south of a line running from the southern tip of its largest island across to each shore, on a bearing of 244° to the west and 64° to the east, only electric motors of up to 7.5 kW may be used.
Fish and forage
Chironomids are the staple in spring, with bloodworms (the larvae) on the bottom and shrimp everywhere; trout kept here often have bright orange flesh from eating them. Leeches run large. By mid-June mayflies and caddis start to show on the water, and damselflies, dragonflies, beetles and flying ants follow into summer.
When to fish it
The rules list no closure for the lake; check in-season changes before you go. Roche sits high, so ice-off and the first hatches come later than on the lower lakes near town, often in the second half of April. May and June are the chironomid months, and on many days the best of it runs from late morning into early afternoon, then again from early evening to dark. In some springs the lake turns over a second time in May and clouds up with algae for a few days; sunny, settled weather clears it. July and August bring damsels and dragonflies and warmer, deeper fish. Autumn is the other good season, when the water cools and the fish come back up onto the shoals; September and October are worth the drive. Ice fishing is not allowed here, so the season ends at freeze-up.
How to fish it
On the shoal, anchor quietly in among moving fish rather than on top of them, then hang one chironomid pupa under an indicator so it sits just off the bottom. Black and red in a size 10 has done well in May; chromies and dull olives in 12 to 16 carry on into June, when the fish turn selective. If the indicator stays still, take it off and long-line the same pupa with a slow hand-twist retrieve.
When the midges stop working, change to a micro leech or a ruby-eyed leech and give it more movement than you would expect. If you can’t find fish, troll a leech or a nymph slowly along the drop-off until something takes, then anchor there. In summer, let the wind drift you across the shoal with a dragonfly nymph on an intermediate line, and recast whenever the wind shifts. Along the reeds, a damselfly nymph stripped in short pulls is worth trying.
BC allows one artificial fly on a line, so fish one pattern at a time and change it rather than adding another.
Access and safety
Turn off Highway 5A at the north end of Trapp Lake onto the gravel road into the park; the private resort on that road has its own launch for guests. Roche Lake North is the easiest campground to reach, takes trailers and has a launch. Roche Lake West and a small campground on Horseshoe Lake are more basic. Most launches are rough and best for small boats, canoes and kayaks. How bookings work has changed over the years, so check the park’s own page before you count on a site.
Black bears live in the park: keep food in your vehicle and use the bear-proof bins. Camp in the campgrounds rather than in the bush, where dead trees are a hazard. Watch the sky in spring, when hail and wind can blow up within minutes, and get off the open lake before it arrives.
Regulations
The rainbow trout daily quota is 2, and the regional limit of no more than one trout over 50 cm applies within it; possession is two daily quotas. Fish with a single hook, and no ice fishing. You need a BC basic angling licence if you are 16 or older. Check the provincial synopsis and any in-season changes before you fish.