When an autumn storm turns the Bulkley brown, take the gravel road south out of Houston, and the Morice below Lamprey Creek is often still fishable. A big lake at its head settles the water before it leaves. The steelhead in it spent an extra year of their youth here eating caddis, stoneflies and mayflies, and they come back from the sea still willing to rise like trout.
The Morice is the bigger of the two rivers that meet at Houston, though it is the Bulkley that keeps the name below. It drains Morice Lake, under the Coast Range, and runs down to Houston with a logging road beside it most of the way. Think of it in three parts: the long lower river, a middle stretch where glacial water comes in, and a small, clear top end below the lake. The higher you go the later each part opens, and the first two kilometres below the lake are closed to fishing for good.
Start on the lower river, from Houston up to where Lamprey Creek comes in. The road runs close most of the way, and this is where you learn how Morice fish hold in runs and pockets. Below Lamprey Creek the river is still milky with snowmelt in July, when chinook are in; by late August it has cleared and the first steelhead have arrived.
The middle stretch runs from Lamprey Creek up to Gosnell Creek, where a glacial tributary system pours grey silt into the clear lake water. The pockets just below Gosnell Creek, where the two waters meet, are worth a slow look in the autumn.
Above Gosnell Creek the Morice is all lake water: small and clear, and rearranged from one year to the next, so a run that held fish last season may be gone. It is the last part of the river to open, and the one to save for October.
Downstream at Houston the Morice becomes the Bulkley and runs on toward Smithers. Upstream, the road ends at Morice Lake, in a provincial park where the wind comes off the Coast Range and can raise waves on the lake before you see it coming.
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.
The lake keeps the Morice clearer than the rivers around it, and the upper river clears fast even after heavy rain. About fifteen kilometres below the lake the Gosnell Creek and Thautil River system adds heavy glacial silt, so the water below it carries a glacial tint. Steelhead hold in runs and in small pockets behind boulders. Sweepers, logjams, rock gardens and rapids make it a river for experienced boaters only.
Fish and forage
The Morice is a major producer of chinook, coho, sockeye, pink salmon and steelhead. That extra year of feeding in the river may be why its adult steelhead come so readily to a surface fly. Resident rainbow trout and Dolly Varden are plentiful. Chinook come more readily to lures than to flies.
When to fish it
The whole river is closed from 1 January to 15 June. Below Lamprey Creek it reopens on 16 June and runs to 31 December, and late August into September there is the best of the surface fly. November below Lamprey Creek can be good in mild, dry spells, or frozen or blown out in others.
From Gosnell Creek down to Lamprey Creek there is no fishing from 1 January to 31 August, and from 1 to 30 September it is fly fishing only. The third week of September, when the aspens and cottonwoods turn yellow, has a good name between Gosnell and Lamprey creeks.
From the Dunes, a set of boundary signs about two kilometres below the lake, down to Gosnell Creek, there is no fishing from 1 January to 30 September; it opens on 1 October. Between the boundary signs at the lake outlet and the Dunes there is no fishing at any time.
How to fish it
Fish one fly at a time and start on the surface. A deer-hair dry tied in yellow, green, brown or grey on a size 4 or 6 long-shank hook is the old Morice fly; a Bulkley Mouse or a Freddie does the same job. Cast down and across, and let it wake a little slower than the current with a touch of drag, which these fish seem to prefer to a dead drift. A steelhead often rises several times before it takes, so show the fly again before you move on.
If nothing comes up, change to an orange or black Woolly Bugger or a black marabou fly on a sinking tip and work the run again. A single-hand 8-weight handles the smaller upper water; a spey rod covers the long lower runs. There is no angling from boats anywhere on the Morice from 15 August to 31 December, so if you float, pull the boat ashore at the head of each run and fish down through it on foot.
Access and safety
Turn south off Highway 16 about two kilometres west of Houston onto the Morice River Forest Service Road. It is a radio-controlled logging road: public vehicles may use it, but loaded logging trucks have the right of way. Aspen recreation site sits at about 17.5 km. At about 29 km a road turns off toward Owen Lake, and just up it the Owen Flats sites have a roadside boat launch and day-use area and, a little farther on, campsites beside the Morice. The Lamprey Creek recreation site, where the creek meets the river, is roughly 45 km in; it has been closed in some years, so check before you count on it.
For the top of the river and the lake, turn right onto Morice Lake Road 27 km from the highway, follow it to the 75 km marker, then turn right just past it and drive 7 km to Morice Lake Provincial Park. Grizzly and black bears both live here and use the gravel bars, so keep food packed away.
Regulations
The Morice is Class II classified water from 1 September to 31 October: you need a Classified Waters Licence and a Steelhead Stamp, and non-guided non-resident aliens may not fish on Saturdays and Sundays. Bait is banned, every stream in Region 6 requires a single barbless hook, and BC allows one fly on a line. Release every wild steelhead and every Dolly Varden or bull trout. You may keep one trout a day from 1 July to 31 October if it is 30 cm or longer, with a possession limit of two daily quotas; trout of any size go back from 1 November to 30 June. Fisheries and Oceans Canada sets the rules for salmon. Check in-season changes at gov.bc.ca/FishingRegulations before you go.