Bull trout
Bull trout in BC lakes
Not a trout. A char, native to the province, and the fish most often confused with Dolly Varden because for most of the last century science filed them as the same animal.
Telling it apart
Pale spots on a dark olive body, no black on the dorsal fin, and a head that is large, broad and flat across the top even on a modest fish. The no black rule is the one to remember: a trout carries black spots or black edging on the dorsal, a char does not. Against a Dolly Varden it is harder, and the honest answer is below.
Where it is
The cold half of the province. Bull trout want clean, cold water and something to eat that swims, so they live in big interior and northern lakes and the systems that feed them, and are scarce or absent on the warm low coast where Dolly Varden takes over.
The Province does not file this fish under one name. These are its own labels, with the lakes carrying each, and every one of them is counted on this page. A lake can carry more than one of these, so the rows add up to more than the 231 lakes on this page.
- Bull Trout227
- Anadromous Bull Trout9
| Region | Lakes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Omineca | 50 | 22% |
| Cariboo | 40 | 17% |
| Kootenays | 34 | 15% |
| Skeena | 30 | 13% |
| Thompson-Nicola | 28 | 12% |
| Peace | 17 | 7% |
| Okanagan | 15 | 6% |
| Lower Mainland | 13 | 6% |
| Vancouver Island | 4 | 2% |
How to fish for it
A bull trout of any size is a predator, so the fishing is closer to pike fishing than to chironomid fishing. Big profile, deep, slow. They follow kokanee and whitefish, so the water holding the forage is the water holding the fish, and a sounder that can find a bait ball is worth more than any fly box. They are long lived and slow growing, which is why so many of the waters that hold them carry tighter rules than the provincewide default.
| Lake | Biggest on record | What the record says |
|---|---|---|
| Upper Arrow Lake | 20 lb | Kootenays |
| Upper Arrow Lake (Drawdown Area) | 20 lb | Bull trout over 20 lb trolled in the drawdown, per Arrowhead Fishing Adventures. |
| Arrow Lakes | 15 lb | Kootenays |
| Carpenter Lake | 15 lb | Bull trout run to 15 lb per a 2016 Chilcotin Holidays post on Carpenter. |
| Kinbasket (Mcnaughton) Lake | 15 lb | Kootenays |
| Koocanusa Reservoir | 15 lb | Kootenays |
| Kootenay Lake | 15 lb | Kootenays |
| Vedan Lake | 15 lb | BC Adventure says Vedan bull trout go up to 15 lb, with wild rainbows to 5 lb. |
| Williston Lake (In Zone A) | 15 lb | Omineca |
| Williston Lake (In Zone B) | 15 lb | Omineca |
| Chilko Lake (Tŝilhqox Biny) | 12 lb | Cariboo |
| Lillooet Lake | 12 lb | Lower Mainland |
Of the lakes on this page, 8 are catch and release water. That is a signal rather than a rule: what you may keep is in the Province's Synopsis, and the licence page explains where to read it.
Lakes to start with
Each of these has a page with its depth, its fish, the rule text we hold for it and a seven day forecast, and each is here because of the record beside it rather than because of its reputation.
- Upper Arrow Lake 20 lb on record, Kootenays
- Arrow Lakes 15 lb on record, Kootenays
- Kootenay Lake 15 lb on record, Kootenays
- Quesnel Lake 12 lb on record, Cariboo
- Slocan Lake 12 lb on record, Kootenays
- Takla Lake 12 lb on record, Omineca
- Trout Lake (Lardeau) 12 lb on record, Kootenays
- Adams Lake 10 lb on record, Thompson-Nicola
What these numbers are, and are not
The lake counts on this page come from the Province's fish observation records, plus angling reports where we hold them. An observation record says a fish was seen in that water on some date, and those dates run from this year back to the middle of the last century. A lake can appear here and no longer hold the fish, and a lake can hold it and never have been surveyed. Every lake page prints the year behind its own list, which is the honest version of this page's count.
The weights are reported figures, from guidebooks, from the Province and from anglers, gathered as each lake was researched. They are not official records and we do not claim they are.
Open the map: 1,843 BC lakes, each with a seven day forecast
Where to go next
- Every species in the atlas, with the lake count behind each.
- The trout and char of BC lakes, which tells all of them apart in one read.
- The licence and the rules, before you keep anything.