Rainbow trout
Rainbow trout in BC lakes
The fish this province's stillwater fishing is built on. If you are driving to a BC lake without a plan, you are driving to a rainbow lake.
Telling it apart
Black spots scattered over a silver or olive body, over the tail as well as the back, and a pink or red band along the flank that is obvious on a spawning fish and faint on a bright summer one. Spots on a pale background is the whole trick: the char swap that around and carry pale spots on a dark body.
Where it is
Everywhere. Rainbow is native to most of the province and stocked into a great deal more, which is why it turns up in more lakes in this atlas than every other species combined. The interior plateau lakes are the classic water: shallow, rich, productive, and capable of growing a fish far faster than a cold mountain lake will.
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.
- Rainbow Trout1,576
- Gerrard Rainbow Trout2
| Region | Lakes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Thompson-Nicola | 310 | 20% |
| Cariboo | 287 | 18% |
| Omineca | 201 | 13% |
| Okanagan | 199 | 13% |
| Vancouver Island | 162 | 10% |
| Kootenays | 136 | 9% |
| Skeena | 136 | 9% |
| Lower Mainland | 105 | 7% |
| Peace | 42 | 3% |
How to fish for it
A rainbow in a BC lake eats insects for most of its life, so the calendar matters more than the lure. Chironomids from ice off through to June, fished slowly and deep, account for more fish than anything else. Mayflies and damselflies through late spring. Leeches and scuds all year, and they are what to reach for when nothing is hatching. Through the warm middle of summer the fish go deep and the fishing gets early and late. September turns them on again and they feed hard until the lake closes over.
| Lake | Biggest on record | What the record says |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Lake | 52 lb | A 52 lb Gerrard rainbow netted at Jewel Lake in the 1930s, says WeSportFish. |
| Lois Lake | 30 lb | A 30 lb rainbow was reported by guide Pat Demeester to the National Observer. |
| Upper Arrow Lake | 30 lb | Gerrards of 30 lb are now rare on the Arrow Lakes, says the BC Adventure guide. |
| Eutsuk Lake | 29 lb | A 29 lb rainbow from Eutsuk in a BC Fishing Reports record thread from 2008. |
| Trembleur Lake | 22.5 lb | Rainbows to 22.5 lb in the BC Adventure Fort St. James guide; char to 10 lb. |
| Arrow Lakes | 20 lb | Kootenays |
| Forest Lake | 20 lb | Stocked rainbows weighing as much as 20 lb in a 2024 Williams Lake Tribune piece. |
| Kootenay Lake | 20 lb | World's largest strain of rainbow trout; fish over 30 lb recorded. |
| Lower Arrow Lake | 20 lb | Rainbows to 20 lb on the BC Adventure Lower Arrow page, with kokanee to 12.1 lb. |
| Lower Kane Lake | 20 lb | Rainbows to 20 lb in the BCFishing report, with 5 to 8 lb fish caught often. |
| Mara Lake | 20 lb | Rainbows close to 20 lb are recalled on the BC Fishing Reports Mara Lake thread. |
| Quesnel Lake | 20 lb | Deepest fjord lake in the world; big rainbows feed on sockeye fry. |
Of the lakes on this page, 37 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.
- Lois Lake 30 lb on record, Vancouver Island
- Upper Arrow Lake 30 lb on record, Kootenays
- Arrow Lakes 20 lb on record, Kootenays
- Forest Lake 20 lb on record, Thompson-Nicola
- Kootenay Lake 20 lb on record, Kootenays
- Lower Arrow Lake 20 lb on record, Kootenays
- Mara Lake 20 lb on record, Thompson-Nicola
- Quesnel Lake 20 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.