Late in May, on the river above Pitt Lake, the snow comes off the valley walls and the water runs a steely green. Salmon fry are drifting down toward the lake, and big sea-run
bull trout are coming up the other way to meet them. It happens in a mountain valley that no road from the city reaches, though on some days the city’s haze still drifts in.
The river is cut in two by a lake. It rises in glacier country in the Garibaldi Ranges, runs south down a long wild valley, and drowns in Pitt Lake, a tidal lake you cross by boat. It comes out of the lake’s south end at a place called Grant Narrows as a different river, slow and tidal, winding between dykes through farmland and suburbs to the Fraser at Pitt Meadows. The headwaters inside Garibaldi Park are closed to fishing all year.
Start on the lower river, because you can drive to it. Dykes line its banks from the lake down to the Lougheed Highway bridge, and the water rises and falls with the tide. Cutthroat and char hunt the mouths of the sloughs and creeks that drain the marsh, and later in the year coho and pinks pass up through the same water below Pitt Lake. It is a big, flat, open river with room for every back cast.
The upper river is the one people cross the lake for. It is a glacial river of pools, riffles and gravel bars, wadeable bank to bank when it drops and clears, with deep green runs where char hold in rows along the bottom. You reach it from Grant Narrows by boat, about half an hour across the lake in a fast one, then follow a rough logging road up the valley or run the river in a jet boat.
Learn the tides on the lower river first, then cross the lake.
Water and habitat
Below the lake the river is slow and deep between its dykes. The tide pushes up from the Fraser and reaches into the lake, and fish move with it: an incoming tide brings fresh fish in, and a slow ebb carries young salmon down, which sets trout and char feeding. They hold at the mouths of sloughs and creeks, where moving water carries food past a soft edge.
Above the lake the river is fed by ice and snow. Warm weather or heavy rain can colour it and put it out of shape. When it is low and clear you can read every run: char sit deep in the swift, dark-green slots and in the tailouts below gravel bars, and trout hold along the seams.
When to fish it
On the lower river below Pitt Lake, spring before the freshet is the time for cutthroat and char, and coho come through below Pitt Lake from September to November. Fish the mouths of De Boville Slough and the Alouette River on a flood tide and into the hour after high water; a slow ebb is the next best. Cutthroat dislike bright light, a habit well known on the nearby Fraser, so overcast days are worth waiting for.
On the upper river from Pitt Lake to Boise Creek, cutthroat show in April, sea-run bull trout from late May into early July, and sockeye in August and September. From August into November the Dolly Varden follow the salmon up from the lake toward Boise Creek, and coho run there from September into December. Rainbows feed in any month. Arrive between runs and the river can feel empty.
Access and safety
On the Coquitlam side a gravel dyke path runs from the Lougheed Highway bridge to the edge of Pitt-Addington Marsh, with ways on from Dominion Avenue, Prairie Avenue and De Boville Slough. On the Pitt Meadows side a dyke runs the whole river, reached at the Alouette River mouth, the end of Harris Road, Sturgeon Slough and Grant Narrows Regional Park.
Grant Narrows, at the end of 208th Street, has the launch onto the lake. Car-top boats launch free and trailered boats pay a fee; the gate keeps set hours, so check with the park before you tow a boat there. The lake is long and deep, and the wind gets up fast, often in the afternoon, raising big waves. Where wind runs against the tide over the shallow bar near the narrows, paddlers have drowned.
From the head of the lake, a rough logging road follows the upper river. A water taxi carries people and bikes across, and jet boats run the river; there is no other way in. Bears leave their tracks on the gravel bars.
Regulations
On the lower river from the CPR Bridge up to Pitt Lake there is no fishing from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise; the tributaries are not included. On that same stretch, dead fin fish may be used as bait only when fishing for sturgeon, and white sturgeon are catch and release; check the regulations for the sturgeon licence. Below the CPR Bridge, check whether federal tidal rules and licences apply. Boats must keep to 10 km/h at Grant Narrows.
Upstream of Pitt Lake bait is banned. There is no fishing within Garibaldi Park, so stop at its boundary. Fishing is also barred within 100 m of any government facility for counting, passing or rearing fish. Outside the park the rules list no closure for the upper river; check in-season changes before you go.
On both parts, use a single barbless hook and one fly on the line. Wild trout and char from streams must be released, and so must all wild steelhead; fishing for steelhead needs a Conservation Surcharge Stamp on your licence. Salmon rules come from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, so check their notices before you keep a coho or sockeye.
The lake that splits the river has water of its own to find: the slough on its west shore that leads up to Widgeon Creek, and a whole shoreline of creek mouths under the mountains.