Each spring the
sockeye fry that hatched around Babine Lake have to leave it, and the only way out is a short, quick run of river at the lake’s north end. The rainbows of two lakes come to meet them there, and for a few weeks a stretch you can boat in an afternoon is some of the best trout water in the north.
Then the river leaves the lakes behind. Understand its shape first: it slips out of Babine Lake at Fort Babine, runs a few kilometres as Rainbow Alley, slows and widens into Nilkitkwa Lake, then leaves that lake past a fish-counting fence and a road bridge. From there it drops north through the better part of a hundred kilometres of canyon and timber with no road beside it, to the Skeena.
Rainbow Alley is the place to start. It is clear, gravel-bottomed water between the two lakes, reached by boat from the launches at Fort Babine. The trout move from fry to stoneflies there into July. The rules list no closure for it, in-season changes aside, which makes it the only part of the river you can fish before mid-June.
Nilkitkwa Lake is the quieter half of the same idea. Its two sheltered bays lie inside a small park you can reach only by boat, and its rainbows move between the lake and the river on either side of it.
The road water at the fence is the busy part. In August the bank fills with sockeye anglers, and grizzlies come to the fence for the same fish. The reward most people walk past is downstream, where trout sit below spawning salmon and eat the eggs that drift loose.
The lower river is the
steelhead river, and it takes some getting to. Wild autumn fish spread through big, boulder-strewn runs reached by jet boat or raft, and the rapids past a side creek called Gail Creek are serious.
Farther down the Skeena, the Kispiox is still running brown after rain on days when the Babine has already cleared.
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.
Water and habitat
Above the fence this is lake-fed water, clear and steady over gravel. Below it the river turns big and fast, with heavy whitewater over boulders. The Nilkitkwa River joins a few kilometres below the fence carrying glacial melt, so warm spells can colour the lower river while cold nights hold the melt back. The Babine drops and clears quickly after heavy rain and stays fishable in all but the worst weather.
Steelhead hold where the current is broken. On the long pools, look for boulders at the head splitting off a side channel a few feet deep: fish lie along it, out of the main push against the far bank. As the water cools late in the season they slide back into the pools.
When to fish it
In Rainbow Alley the trout fishing runs from ice-off in May into October. The fry are the reason to go early, and a late spring can stretch them to the end of June. Stoneflies start with the warm weather and usually last until the end of July.
Below Nilkitkwa Lake the season starts on 16 June. August is sockeye at the fence. Steelhead arrive from August and keep coming into November, and the second half of September and the first half of October are the heart of it, best under cool cloud after frosty nights.
How to fish it
For the fry in Rainbow Alley, use a 5- or 6-weight, a floating line and a long leader. Tie on a small fry pattern such as an Epoxy Minnow, cast across, mend downstream and let it swing fast; the take comes hard on the swing, so drop the rod tip and hold on. When stoneflies show, change to a Stimulator. Below spawning salmon, change again to a small egg pattern such as a Babine Special and dead-drift it near the bottom, just downstream of the fish.
For steelhead, most anglers carry a two-handed rod in 7 or 8 weight. In September’s clear water start with a floating line and a skater or a small, sparse wet fly swung slowly across the tail-outs. If nothing moves, go deeper before you change flies: a light sink tip, then a heavier tip and a bigger fly such as an Intruder as the water cools. Wade to reach the side channels rather than the far bank, and give other anglers room in a good pool.
Access and safety
From Smithers, follow Babine Lake Road for 50 km and turn north on the Nilkitkwa Forest Service Road. For Rainbow Alley, take the Fort Babine turn-off at about 41 km and launch at Fort Babine Lodge or at Fort Babine; the parks on the alley and the lake have no launch and no drinking water. Babine River Corridor Park begins at the road bridge at about 58 km, with a day-use area, short riverside trails and a rustic campsite about 4 km west. Watch for logging trucks on the narrow bridges.
Grizzlies are common at the fence and at Grizzly Drop on the lower river. Keep food and packs in the vehicle, clean fish right away and drop the entrails in deep, fast water, and if a bear comes to the river, leave until it has gone.
The lower river has many kilometres of Class 3 and 4 rapids and belongs to lodge jet boats and experienced raft parties. The serious Class 4 water begins past Gail Creek, and the last safe way out is a gravel bar above it. Near the mouth, at the Gitxsan village site of Kisgegas, leave the totem poles and old objects untouched.
Regulations
In Rainbow Alley, the channel between Babine and Nilkitkwa lakes, the rules list no closure. It is fly fishing only from the Fort Babine Bridge down to the signs 100 m above the adult counting fence, Nilkitkwa Lake included. You may keep one trout a day from the river, only from 1 July to 31 October and only at 30 cm or more, with a possession limit of two daily quotas; release trout of any size from 1 November to 30 June, and release every Dolly Varden,
bull trout and wild steelhead.
Below Nilkitkwa Lake the river is closed from 1 January to 15 June. No fishing is allowed at any time between the signs about 100 m above and 80 m below the adult fence, about 1.8 km below the lake. From those lower signs to Nichyeskwa Creek it is fly fishing only, 16 June to 30 September. From the fence to the Skeena you may travel by boat but not angle from one.
From 1 September to 31 October the Babine is Class I water, so you need a
Classified Waters Licence, and a Steelhead Stamp is mandatory from the juvenile counting weir at the outlet of Nilkitkwa Lake down to the Skeena. In those months non-guided non-resident aliens may not fish on Saturdays or Sundays from that weir down to the Nilkitkwa River.
Everywhere on the river: no bait, a single barbless hook, one fly on the line, and no fishing for steelhead from 15 May to 15 June. Salmon rules and the sockeye quota come from Fisheries and Oceans Canada; check in-season changes at gov.bc.ca/FishingRegulations before you go.