MCCONNELL LAKE
fishing reports
McConnell Lake has been a good rainbow fishery. In 2024 the lake was stocked with kokanee that have reached a catchable size by fall of 2025.
December 30, 2025
I have been waiting for this day all winter! Finally a day off and enough ice to get after some kokanee. I arrived at the lake to find several fishers already out on the hard water. McConnell is one of the very few lakes that are ready to ice fish that contain kokanee.
The parking at McConnell is somewhat limited because the gate is now closed for the winter. This also means that there is a short hike down to the lake.
I arrived at around 9 a.m. There was 7 to 8 inches of ice near shore that tapered as I ventured out. I wanted to get out to the deeper area of the lake so I had to venture out further than all of the other tents. I made sure to wear my Mustang floating survival jacket that my awesome wife bought for me and I carried ice picks. I tested the ice every so often once I passed the farthest fishers.
It took quite a while to hike out to where I wanted to be and get set up. It was almost 10 a.m. when I was finally ready to fish. I was on 3.5 inches of good clear ice and 1 inch of white ice. This is the bare minimum that I will go on. The depth at my location was 78 feet and I was marking fish at 40 feet. I sent my flasher and jig combo down to 40 feet and started jigging. I set my camera to 20 feet and attempted to coax the fish up to the camera but I couldn't get the fish at 40 feet to chase my gear. I find that the kokanee are often shallow in the early part of the ice season. With this in mind I brought my camera and lures up to 10 feet. It didn't take long after this adjustment to put my first kokanee on the ice! I tried several different baits and jigs including pink tungsten jig flys, tungsten fuzz bombs, glow bugs, shoepeg corn, meal worms and even a small piece of dew worm, and found that they liked the meal worm the best. Kokanee were coming in steady, one to four at a time and all near the surface. Once I started using meal worms the action picked up. By 11:30 a.m. I caught my limit of kokanee and lost two by the hole. The kokanee seemed to like a medium speed jig up and down in about 2.5 foot increments.
The fish were not that big, ranging in size from 12 inches to 13.5 inches. This is not surprising since they were only stocked last year. I chatted with a few other fishers who were closer to shore and they were also catching some kokanee. They were fishing near the surface over 38 feet of water.
It was a pretty awesome day on the hard water. I can't wait for the other kokanee lakes to freeze up!
the Strategy
The setup: A 3.5 inch custom brass and gold flasher with 12 inches of leader to a Chrome's pink tungsten jig
The bait: Meal worms
THE CATCH
It was a quick limit today! So nice to be back on the hard water.
kokanee: 5
rainbows: 0
PHOTO GALLERY
click to enlarge
ICE UPDATE
DECEMber 4, 2025
I took a run up to McConnell and Stake lakes today. Both lakes are completely covered with ice. The ice was about 3.5 inches thick near shore but further out the ice looked sketchy. I opted to try some fishing off of the dock at Stake Lake. I caught a couple of small rainbows and one fat spawning kokanee. I saw no other kokanee on the underwater camera which was not surprising because the water was only about 8 feet deep. There was one tent out on Stake Lake but I would not trust the ice quite yet.
ICE UPDATE
NOVEMber 26, 2025
I took a quick run up to McConnell and Stake lakes today. Both lakes are completely covered with a thin layer of ice. I poked a hole in the ice near shore and it was only about one inch thick. With the weather expected to stay mostly below freezing at McConnell for the next 10 days it shouldn't be long before ice fishing for kokanee is possible!
October 8, 2025
It has been a long time since my last kokanee fishing trip, but today I had plenty of motivation to get out on the water. Firstly I created a new blue hoochie bill on my 3D printer and I was super excited to go and test it out. Secondly and even more exciting was a report I received from a reader that he had spotted spawning kokanee on the shores of McConnell Lake that were of catchable size!!!
This report inspired a question: how are some of the kokanee in McConnell already mature when they were stocked just last year as fry? I reached out to the Freshwater Fisheries Society to find out. They shared with me that while most kokanee in BC mature at age 3, some males will mature at age 2. Even though they aimed to stock all female triploids, the process of making this happen is not 100 percent and a small percentage of fish that get stocked are males. The mature 2 year old kokanee are equivalent to a jack salmon that return from the ocean at age 2. They are commonly caught in rivers and are always male.
I arrived at the lake at about 9:30 a.m. and launched the little 10 foot aluminum boat. There was a bit of breeze and it was only 3 degrees celsius. As I was heading to deep water, I put my new blue billed pink wiggle hoochie in the water and it danced and darted just like I had hoped! When I got to about 50 feet of water I started seeing marks around 30 feet deep. I sent my blue and pink slim swing tail dodger paired with my new blue bill lure down to 30 feet. Five minutes later while setting up my second rod, the blue bill hoochie did the trick and caught my first kokanee out of McConnell Lake! It was about 12.5 inches and very healthy and plump looking. I was impressed- these kokanee were stocked as 4.89 gram fry about 17 months ago, and are already a decent size.
I spent some time trolling around the lake mapping depths and watching for fish marking. I was trolling a Mack's wiggle bill on one rod and a 3D printed blue bill on the other, both paired with pink hoochies. I trolled around the deep area of the lake and found that most of the fish were at the north end of the lake. It took about 45 minutes to get my second kokanee which I also caught on the blue bill hoochie. I then concentrated my efforts on the north end of the lake. I changed out the Mack's wiggle bill to a Chrome's pink single spinner tipped with scented shoepeg. The fish seemed to like this more than the hoochies. Over the next couple of hours I caught and released three rainbows and caught three more healthy looking kokanee to fill my limit, and lost a few others. A trolling speed of 1.3 MPH was best and a depth of 30 to 40 feet seemed to be where the kokanee were at. Once I filled my limit I went over to the shallows near the small islands to search for the spawning kokanee. There were probably a couple hundred red kokanee doing laps around the small island. It was fun to watch.
the Strategy
Rod one: A Chrome's slim swing tail dodger with 14 inches of leader to a 3D printed blue bill pink hoochie
Rod two: A Chrome's slim swing tail dodger with 14 inches of leader to a Chrome's pink single spinner
THE CATCH
Amazing! It was my first time catching kokanee out of McConnell Lake!
kokanee: 5
rainbows: 3
PHOTO GALLERY
click to enlarge
