Payne Lake Provincial Recreation Area
Payne Lake is an easily accessible trout lake where the scenery makes a day’s fishing worthwhile even on the rare occasion when you go home fishless. This popular fishing spot just west and south of the community of Mountain View is a reservoir bounded by forest on its south side and prairie on the north. Of the two campgrounds, one is heavily treed and the other is in open grassland.
Just 3 km off Hwy 5 going to Waterton National Park, this recreation area is used year-round. Ice fishing is at times more productive than the summer pastime of leisurely leaving a line in the water while you snooze on the grass. Facilities are a bit rustic, but the scenery and fishing make this worth the stop. Canoes and motorized fishing boats are common on the lake.
For those looking for a spring hike, a road/trail leading southward from the reservoir toward a small higher elevation lake is bounded by carpets of Snow Lillies and Shooting Stars most May long-weekends.
This reservoir supplies water to three “mountain” irrigation districts: Moutain View, Leavitt, and Aetna, and it is operated by Alberta Environment.
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