When the autumn rain comes back to the Cowichan Valley,
chinook push up from the bay first, then chum, then coho. Big rainbows drop out of Cowichan Lake into the top of the river to eat their eggs. The browns are already waiting, and the largest of them live in a few kilometres of fly-only water below the lake that you can reach from a road.
The river leaves the lake over a weir in the village of Lake Cowichan and runs east to the sea past Duncan, and it comes in three parts. The top is fly water, quick and full of insects, from the village down past two old railway crossings. In the middle it drops over Skutz Falls and through a sheer-walled canyon into a provincial park with a footpath along its bank. Below the park it slows through willows and farmland to Duncan, and that lower river is winter
steelhead water.
Start at the top. Between an old trestle at the end of Greendale Road and the railway bridge known as the 70.2, the river holds its best trout water: golden stoneflies from March, March Browns in spring, caddis into May, and in autumn the lake rainbows feeding behind spawning salmon. An old railway grade follows the river above Skutz Falls, which matters on a river where most of the bank is private.
The park water is the one to walk. A footpath runs about 20 km from Glenora up to Skutz Falls, past campgrounds and pools with names like Stoltz, and most people fish within sight of the parking lots. Browns and rainbows hold in the runs above and below the falls. Each autumn salmon crowd into the canyon below them, and you can watch them from the rim.
The lower river is fished in the cold. Steelhead come in around mid-December and are spread between Duncan and the middle river by Christmas, heavier water fished with a sink tip. Below the trestle known as Mile 66, the river is closed to fishing through most of the autumn.
Once you know the river, go and look at the lake it drains, or at the small clear river that comes in from the south in the estuary below Duncan.
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.
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
The Cowichan is lake-fed and rich, with a food base of insects, crustaceans and worms that keeps resident trout fat. In summer it runs low and warm; in drought years fish have had to be trucked upstream. Rainbows sit at the heads and seams of the faster upper runs where the mayflies hatch. Browns want the slower water: deep banks, shaded pockets, the soft edge under willows. When salmon arrive, the browns move into deeper, softer water, and trout of every kind hold just downstream of the redds, taking eggs as they tumble past.
When to fish it
In March and April the March Browns hatch in the fly water from Greendale Trestle to the 70.2, though the river is usually too high for dries before mid-April. The rise comes in the early afternoon and again in the evening. Caddis carry the upper river from late April through May. By June most rises wait for evening, anywhere on the river.
In September, October and early November, fish above the Mile 66 trestle. Late October into December gives the best mix of numbers and size: above Mile 66 until mid-November, then from Greendale Trestle downstream once the lower river reopens and the short stretch below the weir closes. Steelhead fishing runs from December to March on the river below Skutz Falls: the biggest fish come in December and January, and more but smaller fish in February and March.
How to fish it
Carry one fly at a time and change it when the fish tell you. Before the midday March Brown rise, drift a March Brown nymph close to the bottom through the head of a run. When duns show, switch to an Adams around size 12, and to a red quill once spinners fall. Through the caddis, dead-drift a deer hair caddis with a twitch now and then; if fish keep refusing it, switch to an olive-bodied pupa and lift it as it swings below you. With no hatch, or in high water, go deep with a weighted nymph.
For browns, swing a rolled muddler tight to shaded banks and stay late, because the big fish feed mostly in the evening. In autumn, stand beside a spawning gravel, never on it, and dead-drift a single egg pattern through the slot below the salmon. For winter steelhead, swing an egg pattern or a long, mobile fly on a sink tip through the lower river’s walking-pace runs; it is not an easy river for the swung fly.
Access and safety
The upper river is reached from Greendale Road, Hudgrove Road and the old Lake Cowichan highway, or from Sahtlam Road on the south side, and the railway grade above Skutz Falls leads to the 70.2 bridge. Much of the bank is private, which is why so many people float the river; ask before you cross land. In the park, Skutz Falls Road off Highway 18 serves Skutz Falls, the Marie Canyon day-use area and the footpath’s upper trailhead. The Highway 18 connector leads to Riverbottom Road and the campground at Stoltz Pool, and Robertson Road in Glenora reaches the lower trailhead.
Marie Canyon and Skutz Falls have large rapids all year, with steep drop-offs and overhanging bluffs. Log jams and sweepers can turn up anywhere, and levels change quickly. Expect gunfire near the Glenora trailhead, where there is a shooting range.
Regulations
The whole river is closed to fishing from 15 July to 31 August. From the weir at the lake’s outlet down to Greendale Trestle, it is also closed from 15 November to 15 April. From the signs at Greendale Trestle to the CNR Bridge at mile 70.2 it is fly fishing only all year. Upstream of the CNR Trestle at Mile 66 it is fly fishing only from 1 September to 15 November, and downstream of that trestle there is no fishing from 1 September to 15 November. Tributaries upstream of and including Holt Creek are closed to fishing. Parts of the river carry a speed limit of 8 km/h and an engine limit of 7.5 kW (10 hp).
On Region 1 streams, use a single barbless hook and no bait (with some listed exceptions). Release every wild trout and wild steelhead, and buy a steelhead stamp if you fish for steelhead. Salmon fall under federal rules. Closures around Marie Canyon are sometimes posted in autumn, so check the regulations, in-season changes and park notices before you fish.