Jeffrey Lake is a small stillwater in the St. Mary River watershed of the East Kootenay. It has no recorded surface area, no lake survey and no confirmed access, but it has one hard fact on the record: half a century of stocking with wild westslope cutthroat trout.
The water
Jeffrey Lake sits in the St. Mary River drainage; its exact size, depth and shoreline character have not turned up in any survey or report. The coordinate carried here is the point recorded against its stocking releases, not a surveyed fix, so treat it as approximate until confirmed on the ground.
The fishing
Every fish put into Jeffrey Lake was a wild-origin westslope cutthroat trout fry, released twenty times between 1942 and 1994, roughly 158,000 fish in total. The early program (1942-1963) leaned on large batches of Kiakho-strain wild fry, up to 24,000 at a time; from 1974 on it shifted to smaller, steadier drops of Connor-strain wild fry and fall fry, finishing with 2,000 fall fry on September 2, 1994. Nothing has been stocked since, so whatever is swimming there now is either a long-lived holdover or a self-sustaining population, and neither has been confirmed. Fish it on standard small-lake lines until a local report says otherwise: chironomids under an indicator over any shoal structure, balanced leech or Woolly Bugger retrieves along the drop-offs, and a searching dry like an Adams on a calm evening.
Stocking
The release record below is the whole fishing report for Jeffrey Lake: a heavy early wild-fry program through the 1940s-60s, a lighter, steadier Connor-strain top-up through the 1970s-80s, then nothing after 1994.
Jeffrey — 158,468 fish stocked, 1942–1994
Cutthroat Trout. Source: Province of BC — FIDQ / FISS Fish Releases via the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC.
| Year | Cutthroat Trout |
|---|---|
| 1994 | 2,000 |
| 1992 | 1,000 |
| 1988 | 1,000 |
| 1983 | 5,000 |
| 1980 | 5,000 |
| 1976 | 5,000 |
| 1974 | 5,000 |
| 1963 | 24,000 |
| 1959 | 9,200 |
| 1957 | 8,968 |
| 1955 | 6,300 |
| 1954 | 10,000 |
| 1953 | 5,000 |
| 1952 | 10,000 |
| 1951 | 10,000 |
| 1949 | 10,000 |
| 1947 | 10,000 |
| 1946 | 11,000 |
| 1943 | 10,000 |
| 1942 | 10,000 |
A lapsed program
Access and the rules
No road, launch, trailhead or parking information has turned up for Jeffrey Lake. Confirm access locally, and check the current westslope cutthroat limits and any bait, motor or ice-fishing restrictions for this water before you fish.
