Cottonwood Creek is a small West Kootenay stream best known today for a decades-old provincial stocking record rather than a modern fishing reputation. Between 1927 and 1958 the province released rainbow trout and Kokanee into the creek 21 times, then stopped, and no further stocking, survey or fishing report has surfaced since.
The water
The coordinate this page uses, 49.4914, -117.3059, is the FFSBC/FIDQ release point recorded against the stocking data, not a confirmed mouth or named reach, so treat it as a starting pin rather than a precise location. Provincial stocking records file the waterbody under the Kootenay Lake watershed group, which means the creek's water eventually reaches Kootenay Lake near Nelson, though the exact tributary reach and mouth have not been confirmed for this page.
The fishing
No fish-inventory records beyond the stocking log, no guide coverage and no fishing reports exist for Cottonwood Creek, so there is nothing here to confirm as a modern destination. The historic releases leaned heavily on Kootenay Lake's own hatchery-enhancement stock: Kokanee eyed eggs and fry from the Meadow Creek and Gerrard strains, the same broodstock line behind the lake's Meadow Creek spawning channel, plus rainbow trout from the Gerrard, Pennask, Beaver and Pinantan strains, with two early releases even sourced from Cottonwood Creek's own eggs. That mix reads like spawning-channel or hatchery-support work feeding the wider Kootenay Lake fishery rather than a stocked put-and-take creek in its own right. Whether any of it left a resident population, or whether the creek fishes at all today, is unconfirmed.
Read the chart as the record
Access and the rules
No access route, launch or trailhead is confirmed for Cottonwood Creek. Anyone scouting this West Kootenay stocking record in person should start from the release-point coordinate above and work outward; nothing more specific has surfaced. Kootenay Lake and the wider Kootenay Lake watershed are the eventual receiving waters downstream.
Before you fish
Stocking
For an angler judging whether this creek is worth a look, the release history below is effectively the whole fishing report. Provincial FIDQ/FFSBC data records 21 releases totalling 1,004,810 fish between 1927 and 1958: kokanee eyed eggs, fry and fingerlings (842,353 fish) and rainbow trout eyed eggs, fry, fingerlings and yearlings (162,457 fish). The largest single release was 182,980 kokanee fry in 1947; the last was 144 rainbow trout yearlings in 1958.
Cottonwood Creek — 1,004,810 fish stocked, 1927–1958
Rainbow Trout, Kokanee. Source: Province of BC — FIDQ / FISS Fish Releases via the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC.
| Year | Rainbow Trout | Kokanee |
|---|---|---|
| 1958 | 144 | · |
| 1951 | · | 45,989 |
| 1949 | 6,300 | 250,000 |
| 1948 | · | 25,900 |
| 1947 | · | 182,980 |
| 1944 | 83,861 | 100,000 |
| 1943 | 5,972 | 70,000 |
| 1942 | 4,000 | 25,740 |
| 1941 | · | 41,700 |
| 1939 | · | 30,044 |
| 1930 | · | 70,000 |
| 1929 | 38,180 | · |
| 1928 | 12,000 | · |
| 1927 | 12,000 | · |
Conditions
- Stocking: heavy on kokanee eyed-egg and fry plants sourced from Kootenay Lake's own Meadow Creek and Gerrard broodstock, active 1927 to 1958 and dormant since; the chart above is the only confirmed fishing signal on file for this creek.
- Identity: the geo point is the FIDQ release-point coordinate rather than a surveyed reach or mouth, so the exact stream location, access and current species mix are unconfirmed.
