When the sockeye come home, the lower Adams turns red. They fill the gravel bends from bank to bank, and the rainbows and Dolly Varden that spent the summer in Shuswap Lake push up the river behind them to eat the eggs that wash loose. You are fishing for trout in the middle of one of the great salmon runs, with crowds on the viewing platforms and wolves and eagles working the same fish.
The river comes in two pieces with a long lake between them. The lower Adams is short: it leaves the foot of Adams Lake, squeezes through a canyon, spreads into braided gravel inside Tsútswecw Provincial Park, and ends at a delta on Shuswap Lake near Squilax. The upper Adams is long and wild, a floodplain river coming down out of the northern Monashees through Tumtum Lake to the head of Adams Lake.
Start on the lower river, and start at its two ends. Upstream of the road bridge, the canyon narrows the river into rapids and drops it into a big pool with a sandy beach. Downstream, the mouth fans out into Shuswap Lake, with its own small parking area and trout moving between river and lake. Park trails reach both.
The best of the run comes every fourth year, the next in 2030, and the year after a big run is good too. In between, a smaller return still comes in the last three weeks of October, and the trout still follow it into the canyon water and down at the mouth.
The upper river is for being alone: long reaches of undisturbed floodplain through old cedar and hemlock, with rainbows, bull trout and whitefish, at the end of a long drive on logging roads.
The stretch around the salmon viewing platforms, marked by boundary signs, is closed to fishing from 1 September to 31 October, right through the run.
When the trout have gone back to the lake, follow them: Shuswap Lake has its own page, and the fry this run leaves behind feed its rainbows.
Fish in this water
Each fish is rated by its strongest evidence. A rating says how sure we are a fish is here, not how many there are, whether it is worth fishing for or whether you may keep it.
Likely
Older records here, recent stocking, a local guide or fly shop, a guide listing, or recent records on connected water nearby.
The lower river is clear gravel water that keeps rebuilding itself. Floods cut new channels, fill old pools and dig new ones, so last season’s map is a rough guide at best. Trout sit where food drifts to them without effort: the tail of a spawning bend, the seam below a riffle, the slower edge of the canyon pool. On the upper river, below Tumtum Lake, the water runs fast through rapids and whitewater before it slows across the floodplain to Adams Lake.
Fish and forage
Rainbow trout are the fish, bright and hard-fighting, with Dolly Varden and mountain whitefish. In autumn they eat salmon eggs. The sockeye fry that hatch in the gravel over winter drop to Shuswap Lake as soon as they swim, so the fry fishing belongs to the lake. The upper river holds the same three species and its floodplain is salmon habitat for sockeye, chinook and coho.
When to fish it
Both reaches are closed to fishing from 1 January to 30 June, the default spring closure for every stream in the region. From July, before the salmon, trout on the lower river hold in the deeper runs and the canyon pool. Late September brings the first sockeye. Through September and October, fish the canyon and the mouth and stay out of the signed platform water. In November, on the tail of the run, the platform water is open again and the last eggs are drifting. On the upper river, July to December is the season, and the bull trout rules change through it.
How to fish it
In the run, fish a single small egg pattern dead-drifted below the spawners, never cast across the redds. Salmon eggs are larger and paler than trout eggs, so match a light orange first. In clear water, if fish look and turn away, go smaller and plainer; if they still refuse, change to a small muddler swung through the tail of the pool. Stand downstream of the fish, keep off the gravel beds, and let the drift do the work. Outside the run, swing the same muddler through the canyon pool’s seams in the evening.
Access and safety
From the Trans-Canada at Squilax, drive north on the Squilax-Anglemont Road about five kilometres to the park’s main parking lot. A trail of about three and a half kilometres along the east bank links the river mouth, the main lot and the viewing platform, and a shorter one runs from the main lot to the mouth parking. North of the road, trails follow the canyon. Flood damage has made some banks unstable; log jams and sweepers hide in the channels, and the trails along the lower river can flood in high water. Poison ivy grows on the dry slopes all year. Keep dogs out of the river, and leave nothing in the car: there have been break-ins.
The upper river sits in a narrow park running from Tumtum Lake to the north end of Adams Lake. The shortest way in is about 30 km of logging road from Vavenby on Highway 5; from Squilax it is about 95 km. It is active logging country, so drive it expecting trucks, and it is black bear country with no phone for many kilometres.
Regulations
Below Adams Lake, rainbows and char are catch and release, bait is banned and powered boats are not allowed. Above Adams Lake bait is banned; you may keep two rainbows a day, none under 30 cm, and one bull trout a day, none under 80 cm, only from 1 July to 30 July and from 1 November to 31 December, all within the regional daily limits; bull trout must be released from 1 August to 31 October. Every stream in Region 3 is single barbless hook all year. Salmon rules come from Fisheries and Oceans Canada; check them, and any in-season changes, before you go.