At Kinuseo Falls the Murray speeds up over a staircase of ledges and then drops, a little higher than Niagara, into a deep pool. Nothing swimming up from the Pine gets past it. Below the pool, bigger fish can run right to the foot of the falls; above it, the river belongs to small char, trout, grayling and whitefish that were born there and will stay.
The river is easiest to understand from the falls outward. It starts in the Rockies at a pair of lakes inside Monkman Provincial Park and runs north to the falls at the park’s edge. Below the falls it cuts a canyon toward Tumbler Ridge, where a creek joins at the edge of town and Highway 29 crosses. Then a second river, the Wolverine, comes in, and the Murray runs a long, empty valley north to the Pine. That makes three parts: the park river above the falls, the falls-to-town water, and the long lower river.
Start at town. Just outside Tumbler Ridge on the road to Chetwynd, a campground sits on Flatbed Creek before the highway bridge and a boat launch sits just after it, with a picnic table and an outhouse. The water here is gentle, with class 2 rapids at most, and it holds rainbows, grayling,
bull trout and whitefish. Look for grayling around the mouth of the Wolverine, and for slightly bigger rainbows a little further down the Murray.
The pool below Kinuseo Falls is a place most visitors only look down on. The road from town ends at a campground in the park, with a trail to viewpoints above the falls, and the jet boats that run up the Murray to its foot are the usual way to see it from below. The grayling there are catch and release from the falls to signs about 2 km downstream.
Above the falls is small fish, big country. A trail toward Monkman Lake crosses the Murray on a suspension bridge about 7 km in, through grizzly and caribou range, and every fish you see there grew up in the river.
The lower river, from the Wolverine to the Pine, is the one to leave until you know the Murray. It is a remote float through a long valley, with swift current, sweepers along the banks, and no set campsites, only the riverbank.
How to fish it
For grayling, stand below and to the side of a glide and cast a size 14 Elk Hair Caddis up and across, letting it drift drag-free over the fish. Grayling come up slowly and often miss; let them. If they rise and refuse, change to a size 16 Parachute Adams. If nothing rises, switch to a size 14 beadhead Pheasant Tail dead-drifted through the same lane, which also finds whitefish. For bull trout, tie on a size 2 olive or white streamer, cast across the head of a deep pool, let it sink, and swing it through the slow water on the inside. Fish one fly at a time and move on when a pool goes quiet.
Access and safety
From Tumbler Ridge, drive 14 km south on Highway 52 East, then turn onto Kinuseo Falls Road for about 51 km of gravel, washboard and potholes into Monkman Provincial Park. A spur road leads to the falls parking area, and a 3 km trail links the campground to the falls. The steep route down to the base of the falls known as the Chute is not an official trail and is not recommended; the jet boat operators are the way to the pool. Only licensed, permitted operators may land visitors on park shores. Weather in the park is unstable all year, grizzly and black bears live here, and backcountry water needs boiling or filtering. On the lower river, swift current and sweepers are the hazards; East Pine Provincial Park, off Highway 97, is the usual take-out at the Pine.
Regulations
The rules list no closure for any reach of the Murray; check in-season changes before you go. Grayling are catch and release from Kinuseo Falls to the signs about 2 km downstream. Streams in this part of the Peace region require a single barbless hook all year and carry a bait ban, and you may fish only one artificial fly on the line. All fish from streams must be released from 1 April to 15 May, and rainbow trout and grayling from 1 May to 15 June. Bull trout from the Peace watershed must be released all year. Outside those release periods, and away from the catch-and-release water below the falls, you may keep 2 grayling a day, none under 30 cm and only one over 45 cm, with a possession limit of one day’s quota. Outside the same periods the trout quota is 5 trout or char, only 2 of them from streams and only one over 50 cm, with every bull trout released. Above the falls you are inside a provincial park, where park rules apply alongside the fishing regulations.
When the Murray has given you its grayling, the Wolverine River is the next turn: a high-country stream that joins below town and holds rainbows of its own, and beyond it the Pine carries everything down toward the Peace.