In June, in the canyon below the hatchery footbridge, small bright coho are already sitting in green pools between rock walls, a few minutes’ walk from a parking lot in North Vancouver. Most coho wait for heavy rain late in the year. These come up from the inlet to the footbridge in spring and early summer, and in low, clear water they will follow a small olive fly most of the way across a pool before they decide.
The river you can fish is short. It comes out from under Cleveland Dam into a steep canyon, passes a salmon hatchery, and runs a few kilometres through forest and then city to the salt of Burrard Inlet. Everything above a footbridge just below the hatchery is closed to fishing all year, and so is the river above the dam. What’s left has two parts: the canyon pools below the hatchery, and the lower river, where the Trans-Canada Highway crosses and the water opens out toward the inlet.
Start in the canyon. Trails run down both banks from the hatchery lot, and the deep, slow pools between the rock walls are where fresh fish stack up after a rise in the water and settle as it drops. It is the most fished water on the river, and on a summer morning the pools below the footbridge reward whoever arrives first and casts least.
Most anglers gather in the canyon, so the lower river gets less attention than it deserves. Around the highway bridge the canyon gives way to boulder runs, a decent pool and tight pockets of slower water behind rocks, and a fish can be sitting in a slot no longer than your rod.
Then there is the autumn river below the footbridge, which is a different animal: rain, bigger coho, and chinook and chum pushing in behind them from the inlet.
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.
Confirmed
Recorded on this water in the last 15 years, or named for it by a fishery agency, its fishing rules or a fishing publication.
The Capilano is a regulated river. Its flow is set by releases over the dam as much as by the weather, so a pool you read in the morning can be a different pool by afternoon. Through summer the river below the footbridge usually runs low and clear, and fresh fish rarely come up until rain or a release lifts it. Fish hold where the canyon gives them depth and shade: the slow middle and tail of the big pools, the soft water beside boulders, and the deep pockets where current curls back on itself.
Fish and forage
The early coho run small, a few pounds at most. The river below the footbridge also has summer and winter steelhead, and later in the year the coho come in larger, with chinook, chum and pinks. Juvenile steelhead and small trout live in the river year round and will take a fly meant for something bigger. Coho here respond to small, sparse patterns with a little flash: rolled muddlers, woolly buggers and slim damselfly nymphs in olive, chartreuse and sometimes blue.
When to fish it
April and May bring the first coho into the canyon below the footbridge, and the early run usually peaks there through June and into July. July and August are low-water months below the footbridge: the fish get skittish, and a small fly fished carefully in the canyon pools comes into its own. Summer steelhead share that water from July into September. In October and November, rain is the signal: after a good rise, autumn coho, chinook and chum push up past the Trans-Canada Highway bridge into the canyon. Winter steelhead are the reason to come back to the same water below the footbridge between January and May.
Go early, before other lines are on the water. A falling river after a rise, when the canyon pools slow down, is the time to be there.
How to fish it
A 9-foot rod for a 6 to 8 weight handles these fish; the small early coho are a lot of fun on the lighter end. In the canyon pools the fly has to get down quickly, so use a fast-sinking line in the type 5 to 7 range with a short leader. Cast across and slightly upstream, let the line sink before you move the fly, then strip short and uneven, starting slow and speeding up as the fly comes toward you. If fish follow and turn away, change the speed first, then go smaller: a size 10 or 12 in low, clear water. If the fly isn’t reaching them, change to a faster-sinking line or add a little weight.
In the pocket water by the highway, fish one slot at a time. Stand above and to the side, drop the fly into the head of the pocket, and lift it slowly through the soft water rather than stripping. Coho here spook easily, and once a row of lines is working a pool they often stop taking. Rest the water, or move on to a pocket nobody is fishing.
For steelhead below the footbridge, summer or winter, swing a single fly through the seams and tailouts on a sinking line, one step between casts, and change to a darker or larger pattern when the water colours.
Access and safety
The easiest way in is the hatchery parking lot at the end of Capilano Park Road, in Capilano River Regional Park. Trails on both banks lead downstream to the canyon pools, and a short loop near the hatchery crosses the river on two bridges. The hatchery is closed to visitors while it is rebuilt, and trail work can close sections nearby. A second lot sits by the dam at the top of Capilano Road, and the park is on transit. The lower river is reached from Capilano River Road, under the Trans-Canada Highway bridge. Private land and canyon walls limit everything else; walk the trails once without a rod.
The canyon is dangerous. The rock is steep and slick, the pools look calm and run strong and very cold, and water released over the dam can raise the river fast. An unplanned release once sent a surge through the canyon and an angler died. Sirens and lights along the river warn of large unscheduled releases: when you hear one, get out and up the bank. Stay off high ledges, and don’t wade where you can’t get back. Black bears use the canyon below the footbridge in summer.
Regulations
From the boundary signs at the footbridge, about 100 m below the hatchery’s fish fence, down to the inlet, the rules list no closure; check in-season changes before you go. There is no fishing upstream of those signs, all year. Below the signs, bait is banned from 1 August to 31 October, and steelhead must be released. Use a single barbless hook, as in all Region 2 streams, and one fly on the line. Wild trout and char from streams must be released. If you fish for steelhead, your licence needs a Conservation Surcharge Stamp, even when you release them.
Salmon rules come from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, so check their current freshwater salmon notices before you keep a coho. Where the river turns tidal at the inlet, the provincial rules stop and federal tidal rules take over.
When the river is too high, or the canyon too busy, walk down to where it meets the inlet below Marine Drive and watch the tide turn at the mouth, where every one of these fish came in.