Leave Kelowna on Highway 33, climb into the hills toward Joe Rich, and stop where Philpott Road meets the highway. A kilometre of old overgrown road drops through cedar and moss to a creek you’d never take for the one that runs diked and straight through the city. Up here Mission Creek is a cold mountain stream, and the rainbows in it are small and quick to the fly.
The creek comes in two halves with a waterfall between them. It rises near Big White in the Okanagan Highlands and runs west through forest, under the highway, past the irrigation ponds and dams above the canyon. Then it drops over the falls in Gallagher Canyon and becomes the town creek, bridged road after road on its way to Okanagan Lake.
The town creek is the famous half, and it is closed to fishing all year from the falls at Gallagher Canyon down to the lake. This is the water the lake’s
kokanee climb to spawn, and big lake-run rainbows come up into the canyon reaches too. Walk the Greenway and watch them; leave the rod in the car.
Above the canyon is the creek to find. Start at the Philpott Road trailhead, where the High Rim Trail begins on the creek bank at a spot called Mile Zero and bank trails run both upstream and down. Most of the fish are small resident rainbows, but the deeper pools give up the odd bigger one, and the walk is short enough for an evening after work in town.
Higher again, the creek runs on through the highlands toward its headwater lake, past side creeks called Stanley and Fish Hawk. Little is written about this water, so go with a backroad map and the legs for a forest road, and see what the pools hold.
The stretch between the highway and the falls is the one to leave alone. The irrigation district’s ponds and treatment ground fill the valley there, much of it gated private land, and the canyon below is a steep gorge of boulders and roaring water.
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
Mission Creek is the largest stream feeding Okanagan Lake, and it works hard: its upland lakes were dammed long ago to store water for orchards, and the creek has been licensed for more water than it reliably carries. By late summer the upper creek can run thin and clear. That is when the trout crowd into the deepest pools, the heads of runs where riffles spill in, and the shade under cedar and cut banks. Read the creek for depth and cover first; a shallow, sunny flat in August holds little.
Fish and forage
The rainbows come in two kinds. Big fish from Okanagan Lake run up into the canyon and the closed creek below it to spawn; above the falls you are fishing the smaller resident population, which lives its whole life in the stream. Kokanee spawn in the lower creek and are no part of the fishing here. In a small freestone creek like this, trout eat what the current brings them, mostly caddis and small mayflies, with ants and beetles off the cedar in summer. Size matters more than pattern, and a 14 or 16 covers most days.
When to fish it
The upper creek opens on 1 July, after the rules’ spring stream closure, and July often still carries the last of the snowmelt, pushy and cold. August and September above the falls are the heart of it, with the fish packed into the pools and the creek low enough to wade across in places. October slows as the highlands cool. The upper creek stays open through winter, but this is snow country on the road to Big White, and the fishing rarely repays the drive.
How to fish it
Use a short rod and come at each pool from below, low and slow, because these fish see you before they see the fly. Cast upstream into the head of the pool and let the fly ride the seam back toward you. Start with a size 14 Elk Hair Caddis. If fish rise to it and turn away, change to a size 16 Parachute Adams. If nothing comes up at all, cut it off and tie on a size 14 beadhead Pheasant Tail, dead-drifted deep along the head of the pool. Give each pool a handful of good drifts, then walk to the next; the fish that will eat usually do it early.
Access and safety
The trail sign stands about 100 m before Philpott Road as you drive up from Kelowna. Park near the junction; the first stretch of trail is steep and narrow, then it follows an old road down to the creek. Black bears use this valley. There is no bridge where the trail meets the creek, and the crossing is dangerous in high water; wait for the lower flows of late summer before wading it. High water has washed out the Greenway lower down, and a washout has closed Highway 33 at the Mission Creek bridge before, so check road conditions before you leave. Stay off cultivated, posted and private land without permission, which rules out most of the irrigation district’s ground above the canyon.