Mat Creek flows into Meadow Creek near the north end of Kootenay Lake, the same system that carries the Meadow Creek kokanee spawning channel. It holds a real trout and char population of its own, but it is best known for the bull trout it sends upstream to spawn each fall.
The water
NRCan lists Mat Creek as an official Kootenay Land District place name (key JALNK, map 082K06) at 50.310556, -117.031667, though the federal database uses the generic term "Brook" where the local waterway index and fisheries reports use Mat or Matt Creek. It runs stream order 4 (mid-range in the network, on a scale that runs from 1 for a headwater trickle up to 6 or more for a full river), stretches roughly 10 km, and carries ten direct fish records: rainbow trout, Bull Trout and westslope cutthroat. It empties into Meadow Creek, which in turn reaches Kootenay Lake.
The fishing
This is small, steep water with a genuine population of rainbow, bull trout and cutthroat, but the creek's other identity dominates any angling plan. The 2019 Kootenay Lake bull trout redd-count report lists "Meadow Creek (Matt)" at 17 redds, which this page treats as the Mat Creek tributary while leaving the spelling question open. The same report warns that high water and rain can hide redds and depress observer counts in a given year, so even a modest number is not a green light. Treat Mat Creek as scouting and conservation water first: fish it, if at all, well outside the fall spawning window, and give any visible redd or staging bull trout a wide berth.
Food follows the small-stream and spawning-system pattern: juvenile fish, Sculpin, kokanee eggs and fry where the creek connects to channel activity, and the summer hatch calendar of Mayflies, Caddisflies (Sedges), Stoneflies and Terrestrials (Hoppers, Ants, Beetles). Where legal and well clear of spawning fish, a simple attractor-and-nymph box covers it: an Adams, Elk Hair Caddis, Stimulator or Royal Wulff over a Prince Nymph, Hare's Ear Nymph or Pheasant Tail Nymph, with a small Woolly Bugger or sculpin streamer for the char.
Redd water first, trout water second
Conditions
- Navigability: small, steep pocket water (median width ~4.5 m, narrow; gradient ~9.6%, steep; peak mean-annual discharge ~0.73 m³/s, low flow), consistent with a small tributary creek rather than driftable water.
- Stocking: no stocking record. It runs on wild and spawning-system fish only.
Access and the rules
No confirmed public access route, trailhead or parking area for Mat Creek has turned up. Meadow Creek is reached off Highway 31 north of Kootenay Lake, and Mat Creek sits further up that same drainage, but no water-specific access details are available. No Mat Creek-specific fishing-guide trips turned up; guides who work the Kootenay Lake and Duncan River systems fish nearby, but this creek isn't part of any advertised program.
