Late in the year, when the snowmelt is over and the glaciers stop feeding it silt, the Elaho drops and clears and starts to show its stones. Coho have turned up in it in November, and the same pools hold
Dolly Varden, cutthroat and rainbows. It lies at the far end of a long gravel road, well past where most people stop fishing the Squamish valley.
The Elaho rises at a glacier-fed lake in the Coast Mountains and runs south to the Squamish, and where they meet it is the bigger river of the two. Its two largest side creeks cut it into three. The lower river runs from the junction up to Sims Creek, with a logging road beside it. The middle river reaches from Sims Creek up to Clendinning Creek. Above Clendinning is the upper river: a canyon the rafts run, and the headwaters beyond.
Start on the lower river. The road crosses it on the first Elaho bridge, a few kilometres above the bridge over the Squamish, and from there gravel bars, braided side channels and boulder runs are a short scramble from the truck. The few kilometres of water around the junction give up more Dolly Varden than the
steelhead runs downstream, and a slow side channel will hold trout on days the main river is too heavy to read.
The middle river is quieter and less known. Its fishing is unproven rather than empty: wild fish, and few anglers who drive this far to cast to them. Walk it the way you read the lower river, one side channel at a time.
The upper river is a different animal: a whitewater canyon of big waves and boulder gardens. High in the valley, road building in the early 1970s dropped house-sized rock into the river and blocked the
chinook, and that rock has since been blasted clear to let them back into the upper watershed.
When the Elaho is running grey, the Squamish below the junction and the Cheakamus closer to town are the places to go, and the upper valley is still waiting for an angler who wants to find out.
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
This is big, cold water. Snowmelt from early May turns the river glacial grey, and it stays high and silty through August; only in autumn does it drop into runs you can see into. It is prone to flash floods after heavy rain. Fish sit where the force comes off the current: in the soft seam at the head of a run, behind boulders, in the tailouts, and in side channels where the flow slows over gravel.
How to fish it
BC allows one fly on a line, so choose it well. On a sink tip, swing a sculpin pattern across the head of a run and let it hang in the seam below the fast water before you step down. Where salmon are spawning, dead-drift a single egg pattern just downstream of them, close to the bottom. If neither moves a fish, change to a dark leech and fish it slower and deeper through the same water before you move on. In the side channels, shorten up and strip a small minnow pattern along the edge of the current. Keep to the edges: the main river is too big and too cold to wade deep.
Access and safety
From Highway 99 north of Squamish, take Squamish Valley Road; past the pavement it becomes a gravel logging road that follows the Squamish up to the Elaho turnoff. Logging trucks use it on weekdays from early morning; pull over for loaded trucks coming down. A washout where Mud Creek, also called Turbid Creek, crosses the road has closed it in recent years, so check the forest service road status for the Squamish valley before you go. Grizzlies are rare in the valley but present, and black bears are about too; carry bear spray. Watch the river rise after rain.
Regulations
The Elaho has a bait ban, and in Region 2 a single barbless hook must be used in all streams all year. Wild trout and char from streams must be released, and all wild steelhead must be released; to fish for steelhead your basic licence must carry a Conservation Surcharge Stamp. A hatchery trout or char may be kept: no more than 2 from streams, none under 30 cm, no more than 1 over 50 cm, and only 1 char, none under 60 cm. The Elaho is one of the few Squamish tributaries the regulations exempt from a no-fishing rule, but Sims and Clendinning Creeks, like most of the Squamish’s other tributaries, are closed to fishing all year. Salmon rules are set by Fisheries and Oceans Canada; check them, and in-season changes, before you fish.