Cub Lake is a small stillwater in the East Kootenay's upper Columbia River watershed, sitting between the Templeton River and Dunbar Creek on the south side of Bugaboo Creek, northwest of Invermere. It is held entirely on rainbow trout and has been topped up by the provincial hatchery program since 1960, making it one of the East Kootenay's longer-running put-grow stillwaters.
The water
At 1.7 hectares, Cub Lake is a small waterbody: the shoreline and the deep basin sit close together, with no long troll out to a distant drop-off. A BC lake survey measured it at a maximum depth of 12.5 m and a mean depth of 4.8 m, with water clear enough for a Secchi disc to disappear at 10.7 m, nearly to the bottom of the deepest water, and a surface pH of 7.5. That combination of depth and clarity reads as a cold, low-productivity lake rather than a rich, weedy put-and-take pond, consistent with a fishery that runs on stocked fish rather than natural recruitment.
Stocking
For a lake with no confirmed local fishing report on file, the stocking record is the fishing report. Cub Lake carries one of the East Kootenay's longer paper trails: 47 recorded releases of rainbow trout stretching back to 1960, for a documented total of roughly 63,000 fish. Early plants through the 1960s to 1980s put in fry and fingerling rainbow most years, several thousand at a time; since the mid-1990s the program has settled into a biennial pattern of 500 yearling rainbow, most recently Pennask-strain fish from the Beaver hatchery, released 12 May 2025.
Cub Lake — 62,842 fish stocked, 1960–2025
Rainbow Trout. Source: Province of BC — FIDQ / FISS Fish Releases via the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC.
| Year | Rainbow Trout |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 500 |
| 2023 | 500 |
| 2021 | 500 |
| 2019 | 500 |
| 2017 | 500 |
| 2015 | 500 |
| 2014 | 500 |
| 2013 | 500 |
| 2011 | 500 |
| 2009 | 500 |
| 2008 | 500 |
| 2007 | 500 |
| 2005 | 500 |
| 2003 | 500 |
| 2001 | 500 |
| 1999 | 500 |
| 1997 | 500 |
| 1995 | 1,000 |
| 1994 | 1,000 |
| 1993 | 1,000 |
| 1992 | 1,000 |
| 1991 | 1,000 |
| 1990 | 1,000 |
| 1989 | 2,000 |
| 1988 | 2,000 |
| 1987 | 2,000 |
| 1986 | 2,000 |
| 1985 | 2,000 |
| 1984 | 6,000 |
| 1983 | 2,000 |
| 1982 | 1,500 |
| 1980 | 2,000 |
| 1978 | 1,000 |
| 1976 | 3,000 |
| 1973 | 3,000 |
| 1972 | 1,500 |
| 1971 | 4,000 |
| 1968 | 2,000 |
| 1966 | 880 |
| 1965 | 1,000 |
| 1964 | 1,087 |
| 1963 | 1,025 |
| 1962 | 1,750 |
| 1961 | 1,600 |
| 1960 | 5,000 |
That shift, from annual fry stocking to biennial yearling plants, is typical of a lake that moved from establishing a population to maintaining a smaller, higher-survival put-grow fishery: fewer fish go in, but each one is a larger, hatchery-reared yearling with a better chance of surviving to catchable size.
The fishing
With no dedicated local report on Cub Lake, fish it as a standard small-lake stillwater: chironomid patterns fished under an indicator over whatever shoal or shoreline structure the lake offers, switching to a Woolly Bugger or balanced leech worked along the drop-off as the shallows warm. In a lake this small and this deep for its size, the whole basin behaves like the drop-off zone of a larger lake, so covering different depths with a countdown or clear intermediate line does more work than covering distance. This season's fish are last year's or the year-before's yearling plant, so expect fish in the 20-30 cm class typical of second- and third-year put-grow rainbow in similarly stocked East Kootenay lakes, growing toward better size the longer they have been in the water.
What still needs confirming
Access and the rules
No confirmed public launch, parking area or access road has turned up for Cub Lake itself. Its neighbours, Bugaboo Creek and the Templeton River, sit in rough, resource-road country northwest of Invermere, and Cub Lake likely shares that general access character; confirm the route locally before making the drive.
Before you fish
Conditions
- Depth: max 12.5 m, mean 4.8 m, Secchi 10.7 m (BC lake survey).
- Water quality: surface pH 7.5, consistent with a clear, cold, low-productivity lake.
- Stocking: put-grow rainbow trout, 47 releases since 1960, most recently 500 Pennask-strain yearlings released 12 May 2025.
