McLean Creek is a small tributary within the Forster Creek family of the Columbia Valley, west of Radium Hot Springs, feeding toward the Frances and Forster system before it reaches the Columbia River. It shares its name with a separate McLean Creek in the Lower Arrow Lake drainage; this page covers only the Columbia/Forster-watershed water, centred at 50.68795, -116.55654.
The water
No survey in the local fish-inventory record has a direct entry for this McLean Creek. What's known comes from the wider Forster and Frances creek family it belongs to: that group carries confirmed records of brook trout, westslope cutthroat, rainbow trout and Kokanee, with bull trout treated as part of the known or suspected system mix. The Steamboat Mountain fish habitat inventory places this Purcell Range country as glacier- and alpine-lake-fed, with steep, rugged headwaters and many low-order tributaries running ephemeral, avalanche-slope or low-flow by late summer, a reasonable starting hypothesis for McLean Creek too, not a confirmed record.
The fishing
With no confirmed catch or survey record, McLean Creek reads as scout-first water rather than a planned destination. If it holds fish, expect the same small-stream character as the rest of the Forster and Frances family: brook trout, bull trout and westslope cutthroat in the cooler pockets, with rainbow trout more likely lower toward the Frances and Forster mainstems.
Food signal on the wider Forster and Frances system points to Stoneflies, Caddisflies (Sedges) and Mayflies as the backbone hatches, with summer Terrestrials (Hoppers, Ants, Beetles) adding to the mix once the water warms. A scouting box built on Adams and Elk Hair Caddis dries, backed by Hare's Ear and Pheasant Tail nymphs, covers the same water the rest of the Forster/Frances family fishes, if the connected cold-water habitat here proves out.
Treat this as scouting water
Access and the rules
No public access point, road name or trailhead is confirmed for McLean Creek. Anglers exploring the drainage should expect the same backroad approach that applies across the smaller Forster and Frances tributaries near Radium Hot Springs, reached via Forster Main off the Radium Hot Springs or Brisco crossing.
Before you fish
Conditions
- Navigability: no channel-geometry data specific to McLean Creek is confirmed. Treat it as small, steep and glacier-fed like the rest of the Forster/Frances drainage until it is surveyed.
- Stocking: no stocking record. Any fish present would be wild.
