I continue to enjoy learning about “new to me” fish species. My last adventure was a last-minute decision to explore a small local lake, Milburn Lake. This lake is located close to the city of Quesnel British Columbia and can be found at an elevation of 2,500 feet. The maximum depth here is 25 feet. This lake is stocked with eastern brook trout and rainbow trout by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC (GoFishBC). Due to high angler pressure, the lake receives 15,000 brook trout annually. Recent stocking efforts of rainbow trout have shifted from 2,500 rainbow trout to an average of 687.5 rainbow trout per year. The smaller stocking efforts might be due to the aggressive horsefly strain that has been stocked over the last four years. Check out the stocking data on the GoFishBC website.
My understanding of the best time to go brook trout fishing is during the first few hours of daylight. Unfortunately, we arrived at the lake later in the morning, so I was unsure if we would hit the bite. Luckily, the fish were still biting for the first hour after our arrival at 10:00am. Then, they disappeared and were nowhere to be found.
When we arrived, we drilled multiple holes at multiple depths. I like to predrill my holes to help prevent noise disturbance later in the day to help prevent scaring the fish away. I have always heard that brook trout can be found in shallow water and in as little as two feet of water, so we tried close to shore and away from shore. Drilling holes was an easy task thanks to our six inch StrikeMaster Fin-Bore 3 manual ice auger. Even Austin was able to hand drill his own holes with this auger. When drilling holes, we like to drill two holes close together. One hole is for our Garmin Striker 4 ice transducer and we fish from the other hole. Having a separate hole for your ice transducer helps protect it from a thrashing fish coming up through the hole.
We decided to leave our ice tent at home and opted to sit in our chairs at different locations on the lake. Austin was excited, because he was able to use his new Garmin Ice transducer that he got at Christmas with his Garmin Striker 4 that he bought last year. The temperature outside was -16 degrees Celsius and I started questioning if leaving our ice tent at home was a good idea once my fishing line started freezing and was not laying flat in the water. Thankfully, my Cabelas Guidewear bib pants and StrikeMaster battle jacket kept me warm in the wind and cold.
With my fishing line freezing, I was considering adding a flasher to my setup to help my line lay flat in the water. However, brook trout can be light biters, so I decided to stay with the tried and true indicator with just a jig. An orange jig (made locally in Quesnel) tipped with one mealworm proved to attract the most interest from the fish and I ended up catching two brook trout and missed many others. I enjoyed watching the fish chase my jig under the water on my fish finder. I struggled watching my indicator over the fish finder screen. I had more success when watching for light bites on my indicator.
I kept one fish for dinner and it was good to be able to see what the fish was eating when I got it home. The stomach was full of water beetles, so I question if I should use a black or brown jig next time. I fried up this brook trout and was impressed by the taste of it. I thought a bug eater would taste more like a rainbow trout. This fish had a unique flavor that I look forward to eating again soon.
I look forward to exploring other lakes that are stocked with brook trout in the future. A search of the GoFishBC stocking date will help me decide where to go next. The hardest deciding factor will be how much time I have and how far I am willing to travel.
While I did not film for my YouTube channel Fougere Family Adventures on this trip, here’s some old videos I made fishing Milburn Lake for Brook Trout. Make sure you subscribe to my channel for more videos coming in the future.