Alouette Lake — deep, wild, and nobody stocks it

The main event

Kokanee — wild, and descended from trapped sockeye

• The Alouette Dam went up in 1928 and cut the watershed off from the sea. The sockeye that were above it stayed above it, and their descendants are the kokanee you catch today.
• They are still trying to leave. BC Hydro releases 3 m³/s from the spillway between 15 April and 14 June specifically so kokanee smolts can run downstream — about 15,000 a year — and some come back as sea-run adults.
• Quota 5 a day, and none from streams. Peak is mid-May to mid-June, near the surface; by July they are deep.

Release these

Bull trout and Dolly Varden

• Alouette has its own line in the Region 2 synopsis and it says bull trout (char) catch and release. That overrides the regional char quota here.
• You cannot reliably tell a bull trout from a Dolly Varden in the net. Treat every char you land as a release and you are always right.
• They are the year-round fish here — big, deep, and the reason some people troll this lake in February.

The leftovers

Lake trout, rainbows, cutthroat, whitefish, pikeminnow

• Lake trout — the only ones listed anywhere in the Lower Mainland, and they are here because 241,506 of them were dumped in between 1968 and 1990 and then the programme stopped. Still char: 1 a day, none under 60 cm.
• Rainbow and cutthroat carry on from old stockings that ended in 2013 and 2010. Wild-spawned now, and thin on the ground.
• Lake whitefish, largescale sucker and northern pikeminnow round out the list. The pikeminnow are what you catch in the shallows in July.

The summer day-use pass

• 15 May to 7 September 2026, and only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and holidays. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday need nothing.
• Free, booked online, released two days ahead at 7 am. An AM pass covers arrival and departure between 7 am and 1 pm; a PM pass covers arrival after 1 pm; after 3:30 pm nobody needs one.
• Four lots need it: Alouette Lake boat launch (100 passes), South Beach day use (800), Gold Creek (110) and West Canyon (55). Mike Lake, Main Corral and Spirea are exempt — and so, usefully, is North Beach.
• Exempt: a valid camping reservation, or arriving on TransLink.

The gate, and what it means in winter

• The park gate runs 7 am to 11 pm. Unlike Buntzen there is no month-by-month table — but there is no early lock-out either.
• So the constraint here is daylight, not the gate. In December that means being off the water by about 4:30 pm because you cannot see, not because anyone is closing anything.
• The boat launch itself is seasonal: May to October only. From November the lake is a shore or car-top fishery.
• Check the advisories page the morning you go — this park closes roads and whole areas for weather and wildfire more often than the city lakes do.

Which lot to use

• South Beach — the big one, sandy, washrooms, rentals in summer. Fine in the shoulder seasons, a zoo in July.
• The boat launch lot — right at the south end, and the only place to put a boat in. Overnight parking allowed.
• North Beach — end of the road, no pass required on any day, and the quietest bank access you can reach with a car. If you are going on a summer Saturday and did not get a pass, this is the answer.
• Mike Lake — small, no motors, no pass, and a genuinely decent backup when the main lake is blown out by wind.

Without a car

• TransLink route 736 reaches the day-use area, and riding it exempts you from the pass entirely.
• The pass is a parking pass tied to a specific lot, so arriving by bike or on foot puts you outside it entirely. The catch is distance: the park road runs roughly 11 km from the gate to the far campgrounds.
• Without a boat, plan on North Beach or the South Beach shoreline rather than trying to cover the lake.

Quotas

• Kokanee: 5 per day, none from streams. That is the fish you are actually here for.
• Trout and char: 4 per day, no more than 1 over 50 cm, and no more than 1 char, none under 60 cm.
• But bull trout are catch and release on this lake, and you cannot tell one from a Dolly Varden. In practice: release every char.
• Possession is two daily quotas. Per person, per day; an under-16 angler beside you has their own.

Hooks, bait, and where this page stops applying

• No single-barbless requirement on the lake. The Region 2 barbless rule covers streams, all year — which includes Gold Creek and the South Alouette, but not the reservoir.
• Bait is legal on the lake. A wedding band tipped with half a dew worm behind a small flasher is the classic kokanee rig here.
• Below the dam is a different river with different rules. The South Alouette is shut above 216th Street from 1 May to 30 June, and shut entirely above the Alouette River Management Society boundary signs. Nothing on this page applies down there.
• Pinch the barbs anyway. You are releasing every char you catch, and kokanee have soft mouths that a barb tears.

Boats — and they matter here

• Power boats are allowed, and so is water-skiing. This is one of the few lakes in a provincial park where that is true, and on a July afternoon it is loud.
• 8 km/h at the south end, south of the ramp-to-signs line, and no vessels inside the buoyed swim areas.
• Launch at the south end; the ramp operates May to October. PFDs for everyone aboard.
• A canoe or kayak is enough for a beginner if you stay south of the speed line and off the lake by lunchtime.

The licence

• BC freshwater licence only. No tidal licence, and no Salmon Conservation Stamp — the sockeye in this system are smolts leaving, not a fishery you can access above the dam.
• Required at 16 and over; residents under 16 do not need one and still get their own quota.
• Licence year runs 1 April to 31 March. Buy it online, carry it with photo ID.

Park rules

• Dogs on leash within 1 km of the park road, and banned outright from the marked swimming and picnic areas.
• Campfires are allowed in the campgrounds when no ban is on, but not at the marine campsites up the lake — and bans are common from June to September.
• Camping is by reservation at Gold Creek, Alouette and North Beach. A camping reservation also gets you past the day-use pass.

Can you eat them?

• Kokanee, yes — a small, clean, oily fish from cold water in a protected watershed, and there is no consumption advisory posted for this lake.
• They are small: 25–35 cm is a good one. Five of them is a meal, not a freezer.
• Char, no — because you are releasing them. And go easy on the rainbows and cutthroat: nothing has restocked either since 2013, so every one is wild-spawned.

The wind

• Morning glass, afternoon chop, most of the summer. Windsurfers come here for exactly that reason.
• In a small boat that means off the water by early afternoon, not "when it gets bad".
• Mike Lake, five minutes back down the road and tree-sheltered, is the plan B.

The shore

• Steep and rocky almost everywhere, and the drawdown leaves a band of loose rock and stumps. Boots, not sandals.
• Only three places give you real bank access: South Beach, Campers’ Beach at Gold Creek, and North Beach.
• Cold water year round — falling in here is a serious event even in July.

Sharing it

• This is a swimming, skiing and camping park with fish in it. Look behind you before every backcast at the beaches.
• From late September the park empties and the whole lake is effectively yours.
• Pack out every scrap of line, and never move fish between lakes.

The one rod

• A 7′ to 8′ medium-light spinning rod rated 4–12 lb, a 2000–3000 reel, and 8–10 lb mono covers kokanee trolling and a surprise char equally.
• Kokanee have paper-thin mouths. A softer tip and a light drag land far more of them than a stiff rod does.

The kokanee rig

• A small willow-leaf flasher ahead of a wedding band tipped with half a dew worm, on a 6 lb fluorocarbon leader. Pink and orange, always.
• Troll slowly — slower than feels right. Mid-May to mid-June they are in the top few metres; by July you need weight or a downrigger to reach them.
• Work the south basin inside the 8 km/h zone first. It is legal, sheltered and where most fish are caught.

From the bank

• Honest answer: this lake is hard from shore, and a beginner will do better at Buntzen or Deer for a first fish.
• If you are here anyway: North Beach at first light, a float set 2–4 m with worm or shrimp, or a small spoon counted down and retrieved slowly.
• Dawn and dusk genuinely matter here in a way they do not on a freshly stocked pond.

For the char

• Bigger spoons and plugs trolled deep along the drop-offs, mostly in the cold months. This is a specialist’s game, not a first trip.
• Everything you hook goes back, so bring pliers, keep it in the water, and do not weigh it on a lip-grip.

Also in the bag

• PFDs, a hand pump, and a real look at the forecast — wind, not rain, is what ends a day here.
• Polarized glasses, a small net, warm layers even in June.
• Your licence, photo ID, and your day-use pass on the phone if it is a summer Friday through Monday.

What you don’t need

• Powerbait and the rest of the hatchery-trout kit. There are no hatchery trout here.
• Chest waders. The shore is steep rock over a drawdown zone and the water is deep and cold immediately.
• A day-use pass, on any Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or any day at all from 8 September to 14 May.