Species · Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
Chinook Salmon
Before 1938 the biggest salmon in the Pacific swam all the way to the Columbia's headwaters in the East Kootenay.
Family
Salmonidae
Origin
Native
Status
Several southern BC populations assessed Endangered, Threatened or Special Concern by COSEWIC (2018); none listed under SARA
How to tell it
COSEWIC calls the chinook the largest-bodied of the Pacific salmon. In British Columbia it is a fish of the coast and the big rivers: a key target for sport and commercial fishing, and, as COSEWIC puts it, highly significant to First Nations and Métis as a cultural symbol and a connection to a way of life.
It was a Kootenay fish once. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s history of the Columbia records that the explorer David Thompson saw salmon spawning in Columbia Lake and Windermere Lake in 1807, and that summer chinook spawned in the stretch of the upper Columbia now flooded by Mica Dam. Mongabay’s 2026 report on the upper Columbia reintroduction describes chinook as the only salmon that historically reached the headwaters.
Grand Coulee Dam ended that in 1938. Nothing on this page should be read as a Kootenay fishery. The chinook a BC angler fishes for today is a coastal and Fraser fish.
The quick read
If you fish the Kootenays, you will not meet a chinook. If you fish the coast or the Fraser, chinook fishing in fresh water is set by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, river by river. Many southern BC chinook populations are assessed as at risk, and openings reflect that.
To keep a chinook caught in fresh water you need the provincial Non-Tidal Angling Licence with a Non-Tidal Salmon Conservation Stamp. Check DFO’s current rules before you fish.
Range in British Columbia
Chinook spawn in rivers along the BC coast and far inland up the Fraser. COSEWIC’s 2018 assessment split southern British Columbia’s chinook into many separate populations, or designatable units, from the lower Fraser to the North Thompson and the upper Fraser, and on the east coast of Vancouver Island.
The upper Columbia, before and after
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council describes the Columbia in British Columbia as historically a salmon river. Mongabay’s 2026 report explains what changed: Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, finished in 1938 without fish passage, blocked salmon from more than half the river’s length and from spawning grounds and nursery lakes in Canada. Chief Joseph Dam followed in 1955. In Canada, Hugh Keenleyside, Mica and Revelstoke dams were also built without fish passage.
The same report covers the First Nations-led work to bring salmon back. Tribes in the United States have released adult chinook above Grand Coulee, and a small number have been tracked moving into Canada, some as far as the first major dam. The report notes that chinook will be harder to restore than sockeye. None of this is a fishery on the Columbia River today.
Habitat and behaviour
COSEWIC describes chinook as unusually varied in how they live. Juveniles leave their home streams at different ages, stay in fresh water, estuaries and the ocean for different lengths of time, and return on different schedules. The old split was two types. Stream-type chinook spend a year in fresh water before going to sea and return early to spawn far inland. Ocean-type chinook go to sea within weeks or months of emerging and return later to spawn closer to the coast. COSEWIC now treats these as ends of a continuum.
Run timing divides populations too. In the Fraser, COSEWIC records spring, summer and fall runs, often in the same part of the basin, and treats several as separate units. That is why a river can be open for one run and closed for another.
Confusing species
Sockeye salmon. COSEWIC gives three marks for a chinook: small black spots on the lower lobe of the tail, a pointed lower jaw and black gums. A spawning sockeye is red with an olive-green head and only fine speckling on the back.
Steelhead. A small chinook in a steelhead river can pass for one at a glance. Look at the gums and the tail.
Kokanee. The only salmon in Kootenay water. A red, hook-jawed salmon in a Kootenay creek in autumn is a kokanee, not a chinook.
Fishing for them
This is a coastal and Fraser fishery under federal management, so the first step is DFO’s current freshwater salmon regulations for the specific water and date. Where a river is open, expect specific limits on gear, area and season. In the Kootenays, the nearest thing to a big-river salmonid on the fly is a large rainbow in the lakes or the Columbia.
Rules that apply
The BC government’s fish page explains the split. Fisheries and Oceans Canada manages salmon fisheries in tidal and fresh water and publishes the freshwater salmon rules. To fish for salmon in fresh water you need a provincial Non-Tidal Angling Licence, and to keep one the licence must carry a Non-Tidal Salmon Conservation Stamp.
On status: COSEWIC’s 2018 assessment of southern BC chinook designated a number of populations Endangered, among them the Middle Fraser spring and fall runs, the upper Fraser spring run and the North Thompson spring run, with others Threatened or Special Concern. The province’s page notes that no Pacific salmon population had yet been listed under the Species at Risk Act. That status shapes DFO’s openings and closures.
Frequently asked questions
Are there chinook in the Kootenays?
Not today. Chinook spawned in the upper Columbia before Grand Coulee Dam blocked them in 1938. A First Nations-led program is working toward reintroduction, but there is no Kootenay chinook fishery.
How do I tell a chinook from a coho or sockeye?
Check the mouth and tail. COSEWIC describes black gums, a pointed lower jaw and small black spots on the lower lobe of the tail as the chinook’s marks.