The trout and char of BC lakes

Most BC lake anglers are after rainbow trout, but a species list for a BC lake often reads longer than that. Several of the fish called trout are really char, one of the most common lake fish is a landlocked salmon, and the rules for keeping each of them differ. Here is who is who, and at the end, how many lakes in each region name each fish.

Rainbow trout

The province's signature stillwater fish, native across much of BC and raised and released into many more lakes. Silver sides, a pink band and black spots scattered over the back and tail. In insect-rich interior lakes rainbows grow fast on chironomids, scuds and leeches, and the large interior strains are prized for how hard they run and jump.

Cutthroat trout

Named for the red or orange slash under the jaw. BC has two kinds in lakes: coastal cutthroat, common on Vancouver Island and the coast, and westslope cutthroat in the Kootenays and the southeast. Cutthroat are often more willing to chase a moving fly than a rainbow and more likely to eat small fish. The table shows how firmly they belong to the coast and the southeast.

Brook trout

Not a trout at all but a char, brought west from eastern North America and released into BC lakes. Dark green back with pale worm-like markings, red spots with blue halos, and white leading edges on the lower fins. Brook trout spawn in fall and colour up brilliantly. Many brook trout lakes are open to ice fishing.

Lake trout

Another char, and the largest fish most BC anglers will meet in a lake. Grey to olive with pale spots and a deeply forked tail. Lake trout need cold, deep, well oxygenated water, so they live in the big deep lakes of the north and the interior and sit very deep in summer. They grow slowly and live a long time, which is why many lakes limit how many can be kept.

Kokanee

A sockeye salmon that stays in fresh water all its life. Kokanee eat plankton rather than insects, so they school in open water and are usually caught trolling. In late summer and fall the mature fish turn red, run up the creeks to spawn and die, like their sea-run relatives. They are also an important food fish for the big rainbow and lake trout that share their lakes.

Bull trout and Dolly Varden

Two closely related char that are hard to tell apart. Bull trout live in the interior and the north, Dolly Varden mostly toward the coast. Both have pale spots on a darker body and no black spots on the dorsal fin. Bull trout are a species of conservation concern in BC and many waters allow no harvest of them at all. If you are not sure which char you have, treat it as a bull trout and release it.

Burbot

The only freshwater member of the cod family, long and mottled with a single barbel on the chin. Burbot live deep in cold lakes and feed mostly at night, and they are best known as a winter fish, caught through the ice on set lines where the regulations allow it.

Where each one turns up

The table counts the lakes in each region whose species list on this site names the fish. It shows the shape of the province: rainbows everywhere, cutthroat on the coast and in the southeast, lake trout, bull trout and burbot strongest in the cold northern and interior lakes.

Lakes whose species list names the fish, by region
Region	Rainbow trout	Cutthroat	Brook trout	Lake trout	Kokanee	Bull trout or Dolly Varden	Burbot
Vancouver Island	155	164	2	1	23	42	0
Lower Mainland	119	63	6	1	15	18	0
Thompson-Nicola	294	13	23	20	35	32	7
Kootenays	131	71	37	1	21	79	8
Cariboo	283	4	11	32	112	35	8
Skeena	138	40	3	59	29	59	19
Omineca	195	2	17	96	26	94	20
Peace	44	0	5	10	2	13	4
Okanagan	189	5	28	8	8	10	2

Counted from the 1,652 lakes that carry a species list. The lists come from the Province's fish observation records, published angling reports and our own lake research. A record says a fish was found in the lake, sometimes decades ago; it is not a promise it is there this season.

Before you keep a fish

Identify it first. Keeping a bull trout from a no harvest water is a fine, and a char and a trout are easy to mix up.
Check the current BC Freshwater Fishing Regulations Synopsis for the lake. Limits, size rules, bait bans and closures change and differ lake by lake.
Handle anything going back with wet hands, keep it in the water and let it swim away on its own.

Open the map: 1,842 BC lakes, each with a 7-day forecast and a score