From late August into early October,
chinook come back to the very top of the Nechako, to the gravel below a waterfall where a smaller river pours in off a rock lip. The heaviest spawning is in the first stretch below the falls. Mist off the drop keeps the trail wet, the nearest town is a long gravel road away, and the river’s rainbows have every reason to be down there with the salmon.
That waterfall is where the river you fish begins. A dam built in the 1950s took the Nechako’s headwaters, and below the wall the old canyon is a dry bed of rock and pinnacles. The Cheslatta River comes in at the falls at the foot of the canyon, carrying the reservoir’s releases, and from there the Nechako runs north past Fort Fraser, east through Vanderhoof, picks up the Stuart, drops through two sets of rapids and joins the Fraser in Prince George. Think of it as three rivers: the upper river under the falls, the long middle river below Vanderhoof, and the town water.
Start on the upper river, from the falls down toward Fort Fraser. It is where fly anglers go, and the place mentioned most often is a campsite called Cutoff Creek, roughly 72 km south of Vanderhoof on the Kenney Dam Road. You fish it from the bank, for native rainbows.
The middle river is the one for a boat. Below Vanderhoof it widens, takes in the Stuart, then runs a long way through farm and forest to a set of rapids at Isle Pierre and another at the White Mud. Paddlers race this water every summer. Its fishing is unproven rather than poor, and the rapids, boulders and logjams between the bridges are where to go looking.
The town water in Prince George is the easy start: shore access from the city,
mountain whitefish in good numbers, rainbows on the seams, and the odd
bull trout. In years when the Fraser’s
sockeye come back strong, salmon run past the city.
When you have the Nechako’s measure, look west to the Stellako, running into Fraser Lake, or north of the city to where the Salmon River comes down its own valley to the Fraser.
Water and habitat
The flow below the falls is set by the dam. Releases from the reservoir’s spillway decide how high the river runs, and through midsummer extra water is let down to keep the river cool for the salmon. Expect a river that can rise or fall on a release schedule, not just the weather.
The upper river runs over the gravel the chinook choose, with boulder runs and wood along the banks. Rainbows hold on the seams behind boulders and under the edges of logjams, where current brings food to them and cover hangs over them. Whitefish spread through the deeper, even runs. Lower down, the rapids and the boulders at their tails are the obvious holding water, and the long flats in between fish best where a bank of wood or a drop in the bottom breaks the current.
When to fish it
The rules list no closure for any stretch of the main river through the year; check in-season changes before you go.
Midsummer, with the cooling releases running, is your best chance of finding the upper river cool and steady. From late August into early October, the run below the falls is at its most interesting, with chinook on the redds and trout working behind them. Autumn on the middle river at Vanderhoof brings geese down onto the bird sanctuary by the bridge in their thousands. In a hot, dry spell, check the gauge at Isle Pierre and fish early: warm water stresses fish you mean to release.
How to fish it
Start with a leech or a small streamer swung across the boulder runs, cast quartering down and let it come round on the seam below each rock. If nothing follows, change to a weighted nymph and dead-drift it deep along the edges of the logjams and the slots between boulders. When fish rise, change to a dry: an Elk Hair Caddis is a fair first guess, borrowed from the Crooked River north of Prince George. One fly at a time, always.
When the chinook are spawning, an egg pattern drifted below the redds is the obvious change, as it is on the Stellako upstream when its sockeye spawn. Fish it from the bank below the gravel, never wading through it.
On the town water, work the seams below the bridges and the rapids with a nymph for whitefish and rainbows, and step the fly a little deeper each drift until you find them.
Access and safety
The upper river comes in two ways: the Holy Cross forest service road on the canyon’s west side, or the gravel Kenney Dam Road on the east. Both are active logging roads, so expect loaded trucks. A recreation site on the Cheslatta, just outside the protected canyon, has camping, and a trail of about 1.2 km follows the smaller river down to the falls. Footing near the falls is slippery and the drops to the water are steep. Greer Creek, about 54 km down the Kenney Dam Road, and Cutoff Creek are both campsites on the river.
In Vanderhoof, the boat launch is on the southeast side of the bridge, across from the entrance to Riverside Park. Below it the river is mostly easy moving water, but the rapids at Isle Pierre and the White Mud can run to class 2, levels rise with dam releases, and canoes have capsized here. Look at both from shore before you run them.