Kokanee
Kokanee in BC lakes
A sockeye salmon that never goes to sea. It lives its whole life in the lake, which makes it the one Pacific salmon this stillwater site is really about.
Telling it apart
Small, deep bodied, bright silver with no spots worth mentioning, and a mouth that is noticeably small for the fish. In autumn the spawners turn deep red with a green head and are unmistakable. A silver fish with no spots in a BC lake is a kokanee or a whitefish, and the whitefish has the smaller mouth and the more pointed snout.
Where it is
The big lakes of the southern interior and the Kootenays, and a long list of smaller lakes they have been introduced to. A kokanee lake needs depth, cold water and a plankton supply, which is why they are a big lake fish here rather than a plateau pothole fish.
| Region | Lakes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Cariboo | 96 | 26% |
| Thompson-Nicola | 51 | 14% |
| Vancouver Island | 50 | 14% |
| Lower Mainland | 41 | 11% |
| Kootenays | 37 | 10% |
| Omineca | 36 | 10% |
| Skeena | 32 | 9% |
| Okanagan | 22 | 6% |
| Peace | 2 | 1% |
How to fish for it
Kokanee eat plankton, so they are not looking for your fly. They are caught by trolling small, bright and slow with something that flashes to bring them in, and by finding the depth they are holding at and staying on it. They school, so one fish means more. They also have soft mouths and a light drag matters more than it sounds. Through the ice they are a genuinely good target on the lakes that are open to it.
| Lake | Biggest on record | What the record says |
|---|---|---|
| Lower Arrow Lake | 12.1 lb | Kootenays |
| Christina Lake | 3 lb | Okanagan |
| Kawkawa Lake | 3 lb | Lower Mainland |
| Lac La Hache | 3 lb | Cariboo |
| Lac La Hache Lake | 3 lb | Cariboo |
| Wood Lake | 3 lb | Okanagan |
| Big Lake | 2 lb | Cariboo |
| Birkenhead Lake | 2 lb | Lower Mainland |
| Murtle Lake | 2 lb | Thompson-Nicola |
| Puntzi Lake (Bendziny) | 2 lb | Cariboo |
| Ruth Lake | 2 lb | Cariboo |
| Saskum Lake | 2 lb | The owner's sheet reports: Rainbow trout 4.5 lb, Lake trout 4.5 lb, Kokanee 2 lb |
Of the lakes on this page, 12 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.
- Lower Arrow Lake 12.1 lb on record, Kootenays
- Christina Lake 3 lb on record, Okanagan
- Lac La Hache 3 lb on record, Cariboo
- Lac La Hache Lake 3 lb on record, Cariboo
- Wood Lake 3 lb on record, Okanagan
- Puntzi Lake (Bendziny) 2 lb on record, Cariboo
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.