Copper Canyon is as far as a
steelhead gets on the Chemainus. The fish that come in through spring and summer run up from the sea, reach the rock and stop, and the deep pools below it are said to be where they wait. You can’t fish for them through the summer. Then October comes, the swimmers have gone home, and whatever has been holding under the canyon all season is in front of you.
The river has three parts, cut by two marks: the falls at the canyon, and a small creek coming in a few kilometres below it called Bannon Creek. Below Bannon Creek is the lower river, running through farm country under the Trans-Canada Highway to the sea near Chemainus. Between the creek and the falls is the canyon water. Above the falls the river goes on for most of its length into forestry country, beyond the reach of any sea-run fish.
The canyon water is the one to find first. A provincial park sits near the foot of the canyon, reached by a gravel logging road, with rough paths down to deep, clear pools and gravel runs. In October and November it is a small, quiet steelhead and coho river, and a morning covers a good piece of it.
The lower river is the long-season water: coho in autumn, steelhead through the winter, and a small run of spring fish from April into June. It runs through private farmland, so where you get in matters more than where you fish. The two road crossings, at the Trans-Canada and down at Chemainus Road near the mouth, are the places to start looking for a way to the water.
Above the falls the river is a different question. Steelhead can’t climb the canyon, and what trout live up there is unproven. If you go, go in October or November, and go curious.
Start with an October morning at the park, and bring the same flies you’d use on the Nanaimo next door.
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.
When to fish it
Below Bannon Creek the river is closed from 1 July to 30 September. Above Bannon Creek, including the pools below the canyon and everything above it, it is closed from 1 December to 30 September, so it opens only for October and November. The 100 metres below Copper Canyon Falls, down to the boundary signs, are closed all year. Check in-season changes before you go.
For the summer fish and coho, fish the pools between Bannon Creek and the canyon in October and November, best after the first autumn rain lifts and colours the river. From December to March, and for spring steelhead in April, May and June, fish the lower river below Bannon Creek, a day or two after rain as the water drops.
How to fish it
These pools are small and clear in October. Come in from above, stay back from the edge, and swing a sparse dark fly on a floating line or a light sink tip through the head and tail of each pool before you show yourself. If the fish won’t move, change to a weighted egg or roe pattern and dead-drift it along the bottom of the deepest slot. Coho are moodier: strip a flash fly or an olive woolly bugger slowly through the slow water, and change colour before you change pools.
On the lower river in winter, swing a larger black or pink intruder on a sink tip through the tailouts and the heads of runs, and take a step after every cast. For cutthroat, try a small minnow pattern along the banks.
Access and safety
From the Trans-Canada Highway at the south end of Chemainus, turn onto Highway 18, then right onto the Hillcrest Payne gravel logging road, and drive about 6.5 km to the park’s parking lot. There are no facilities and no developed trails, only rough paths along the river. Summer weekends are busy with swimmers.
Roosevelt elk, black bears, cougars and wolves all use the valley. Below the park, the lower river runs through private farmland: don’t cross cultivated or posted land without permission.
The canyon above the park is serious water, run by kayakers and not easily walked. Don’t try to work up into it from below, and stay off the signed water under the falls.
Regulations
The river follows the Region 1 rules for streams: single barbless hook, a bait ban, and all wild steelhead and wild trout released. Fishing for steelhead needs a steelhead stamp on your basic licence. The tidal water at the mouth is outside the freshwater rules, and salmon rules, coho included, come from the federal government; check both before you fish.
The Nanaimo is a short drive north, and the Cowichan runs through Duncan to the south. Above the falls, up the logging roads past South Chemainus Creek, the river keeps climbing into the hills.