The provincial dataset contains 64 matched historical fish records from 1916 to 2024. Reported taxa include Brook Trout, Bull Trout, Burbot, Cutthroat Trout, Kokanee, Mountain Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, Slimy Sculpin, Westslope (Yellowstone) Cutthroat Trout, White Sucker. These are source records, not fish counts, and do not establish current presence.

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia.

The summary applies to Goat River in the Creston area. Its trout-and-char harvest restrictions need a location-specific check at the official source before any fish are kept.

The go-to local fly river around Creston, rising in Kianuko Provincial Park in the central Purcell Mountains and running roughly 85 km down to the Kootenay River. Wild westslope cutthroat, rainbow and brook trout fill a river with reach-specific rules that's as popular with summer swimmers, kayakers and floaters as it is with anglers, best fished early and late in the day east of town toward Kitchener Creek.

Dry-fly water for wild cutthroat, rainbow and brook trout, best east of Creston toward Kitchener Creek. Trout and char release requirements depend on the reach and season; check the current water-specific rules. It opens June 15 once the regional stream closure lifts, blows out with snowmelt before then, and gets busy with summer floaters and swimmers, so fish it early and late.

Access — Public river access on Highway 21 south of Creston, the main put-in for summer swimming, floating and fishing near the mouth.

Fishing water — The better fly water sits east of Creston toward Kitchener, roadside along Highway 3 and the rail line.

Streams in Region 4 are closed to fishing from 1 April through 14 June, unless the water-specific table lists an exemption.

Use a single barbless hook when angling in a Region 4 stream, throughout the year and for every species.

Natural bait is prohibited in Goat River and its tributaries from 15 June through 31 October, except Kitchener Creek.

Release all trout and char caught in streams from 1 November through 31 March. Other water-specific catch-and-release requirements can cover more of the year.

Goat River has a main-stem trout and char catch-and-release restriction associated with Leadville and Cameron creeks. Check the current official Goat River entry and confirm its extent before keeping trout or char; do not apply the regional retention allowance throughout the river.

Release burbot in the Kootenay River between the Idaho border near Creston and Kootenay Lake, including tributaries to that section. This includes the Goat River system.

The regional daily limit is 15 whitefish, all species combined. No kokanee may be retained from streams. These limits do not establish which species occur here; species-specific closures and release requirements still apply.

Do not target bass, yellow perch, northern pike or walleye on this water. Region 4 permits fishing for these species only on specifically listed waters; this water has no listed exception.

A separate fishing permit is required on waters inside the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area. Check the management-area boundary and obtain its permit before fishing any part of the lower river within it.

Normally use only one line when angling. A person alone in a boat on a lake may use two lines. Any water-specific exception must be checked separately. Unattended set lines are not permitted in Region 4.

A BC freshwater angling licence is generally required from age 16. Licence, accompaniment and catch-quota rules for younger anglers depend on residency. Check the provincial licensing page for exemptions, required identification and proof of licence. Additional stamps or a Classified Waters Licence may be needed.

An angling licence does not grant access across land. Obtain the appropriate permission before entering or crossing private, cultivated, posted or reserve land.

Fishing is prohibited within 23 metres downstream of the lower entrance to a fishway, canal, obstacle or leap, and within 100 metres of a government fish-counting, passage or rearing facility unless otherwise designated. Ecological reserves are closed to fishing.

Do not fish for white sturgeon in Region 4. Release any caught accidentally; a zero retention quota here is also a prohibition on targeting them.

Bait includes foodstuffs and natural substances used to attract fish, including roe, worms, and scents or flavourings containing natural substances or nutrients. Wood, cotton, wool, hair, fur and feathers are excluded from that definition. Freshwater invertebrates must not be used or possessed as bait at a lake; their use in streams depends on any local bait ban.

Chumming is prohibited. Do not use live fish, or fin fish or their parts other than roe, as bait in these Region 4 waters.

Each angling line may have only one hook, one artificial lure or one artificial fly attached. Do not fish with multiple artificial flies on a line, including a dropper fly.

Before transporting a boat or other watercraft, remove drain plugs and drain its compartments on dry land. Clean, drain and dry boats and equipment before moving between waters.

Photo: Explore Creston Valley (Creston Valley Tourism)

Program: kokanee. Latest reported year: 2024.

The river rises near Mallaindane Pass in the central Purcell Mountains, inside Kianuko Provincial Park, and runs south to the Kitchener Creek confluence before bending southwest through Erickson into the Creston Valley to meet the Kootenay River. It runs roughly 85 km, stream order 6 (well down the network, toward river scale, on a scale that runs from 1 for a headwater trickle to 6 or more for a full river), the outlet for a 176-segment stream network that also gathers Kianuko Creek and Arrow Creek. Provincial fish-inventory data ties 94 records to the river across westslope cutthroat, bull trout, rainbow, cutthroat, dolly varden and kokanee. Its lower reach follows BC Highway 3 and the Canadian Pacific Railway's southern mainline. Before Creston's protective dikes were built, spring runoff off the Goat was a major source of valley flooding, and the 1860s-era Dewdney Trail gold-rush route once ran through the lower valley. A 20-metre concrete arch dam supplied Creston with hydroelectric power from the early 1930s until it was decommissioned in 1979.

The modern stocking record reads mostly as kokanee support rather than a put-and-take trout fishery. Goat River carries a kokanee program: 45 recorded releases totalling 10,587,591 fish since 1916 (kokanee, westslope cutthroat, rainbow, cutthroat and brook trout), most recently 161,665 kokanee eyed eggs on 2024-10-28.

The early releases, cutthroat, rainbow and brook trout fry and eyed eggs through 1916 to 1953, read as historic put-and-take planting that stopped decades ago. The program still active today is kokanee eyed eggs, sourced from the Hill Creek and Meadow Creek hatcheries and planted into the river in most years since 2005. Treat the mainstem’s trout and char as a wild fishery with reach-specific release requirements, and read the chart above as the fuller stocking record.

Cutthroat, rainbow and brook trout are the targets, and the fishing is best east of Creston toward Kitchener, where free-rising cutthroat come readily to a dry fly. Snowmelt keeps the river high and off-color into early summer, and it doesn't fish well until the regional stream closure lifts on June 15. From there, the wide, gentle lower river (median width ~34.9 m, broad; median gradient ~1.1%, gentle; peak mean-annual discharge ~17.4 m³/s, moderate flow) is exactly the kind of water locals float, swim and kayak through summer, so it gets busy; fish it early and late in the day.

Go-to flies are royal-coloured dries, a Royal Wulff, for free-rising cutthroat, dropping to nymphs in size 12 to 14, a Prince Nymph, Hare's Ear or Pheasant Tail, when the fish are down. Swing the fly out at the end of the drift to pick up a few extra fish holding in the smaller pockets.

Reach the lower river at Goat River Wilderness Riverside Park on Highway 21 south of Creston, the main public access for summer swimming, floating and fishing near the mouth. The better fly water is upstream, roadside along Highway 3 between Creston and Kitchener. For licences, gear and local conditions, stop by Mawson's Sports in downtown Creston or Wynndel Foods & Outdoors in Wynndel.