Lac Le Jeune

Lac Le Jeune sits at 1,280 m (4,200 ft) on the Thompson Plateau, 37 km south of Kamloops and a few minutes off the Coquihalla. Anglers came here when it was still called Fish Lake: a fishing hotel stood on the shore by 1905, so it was one of the first lakes in the Kamloops country to draw visiting anglers. It holds only rainbow trout. The Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC stocks about 10,000 yearling Pennask rainbows each spring. Pennask fish come from a plateau lake strain, they feed on chironomids in open water, and they jump hard when you hook one. The lake covers about 164 ha (405 acres) in a V shape. The southwest arm drops to about 27 m (88 ft), the east arm is shallower, and wide shoals of chara and tules line much of the shore.

Ice-off usually comes in late April or early May, and the Fish Index treats ice as a limit. The weeks after ice-off belong to chironomids: fish the shoal edges in 3 to 6 m (10 to 20 ft) of water, with a pupa under an indicator or on a slow full-sinking line. Callibaetis mayflies, damselflies and sedges follow from June into July, and leeches and scuds work all season. In midsummer the lake sets up a thermocline around 8 m (26 ft), and the water below it holds too little oxygen for trout. So the fish crowd the top few metres along the drop-offs, and the shallows go quiet in the heat of the day. Fish early and late. The fall turnover in September can put the fish off for a few days. After that, water boatmen and leeches on the shoals can give some of the best fishing of the year until freeze-up. A float tube, pontoon or small boat lets you work the shoals. Shore anglers have the park wharf and little else.

This is not a quiet lake in summer. The provincial park campground on the north shore has 144 sites and fills most weekends, and the lake is 25 minutes from Kamloops. Boats must keep under 20 km/h. Private cabins line the northwest shore, the southwest end and the small bay past the road, so stay off the docks there. The south and east shores are park land with no road. You reach them on the Gus Johnson Trail or by boat, and the marshes at the east end are protected. Lac Le Jeune Resort at the southwest end rents electric and gas fishing boats. Ice fishing is legal, but the park road closes to vehicles in winter. The Region 3 quota is 5 trout, with only 1 over 50 cm. B.C. rules allow one fly on the line, so leave the dropper rigs at home. If the lake is crowded, Stake and Walloper lakes are a few minutes up the road.