In September the sockeye come up the Quesnel, red backs over the gravel, on their way to the big lake above Likely. Behind them, holding where loose eggs roll downstream of the spawners, the river’s rainbows and bull trout stop being careful. For a few weeks a big wild trout will eat a dead-drifted egg as though it has forgotten what a hook is.
The run is the famous part, but the river fishes for much of the year. Learn its shape first. It leaves Quesnel Lake at Likely as a wide, nearly still outflow, quickens within a few kilometres, and takes in the Cariboo River at an old gold-rush townsite. From there it runs northwest past farm benches and slumping clay banks, through a short canyon, and meets the Fraser in the town of Quesnel. That gives you two rivers: the upper water above the Cariboo, and the long lower river below it.
The upper river is the one people drive for. Start at Quesnel Forks, a ghost town with a recreation-site campground at the junction, and work upstream toward Likely. In summer the fish here look up, and stonefly and caddis evenings make it some of the best dry-fly water in the Cariboo. In autumn it is egg water.
The lower river is the one most people drive past. Below the Cariboo it grows big and powerful, with heavy inside bends and deep pools, and you see the most of it from a drift boat. Between Beavermouth and the bridge at Gravelle Ferry, off the Hydraulic road out of Quesnel, there are rainbows nobody is queuing for.
The upper river closes each spring, so from March to mid-June the water below the Cariboo is the only part you can fish.
Upstream the sockeye keep going, through the lake toward its feeder rivers, and the Cariboo comes in at the Forks with a valley of its own to follow.
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.
A lake feeds the Quesnel, so it runs big and steady once its spring rise passes. Close to Likely it is slow and forgiving; a few kilometres down it turns swift. Below the Cariboo, landslides and old mining have loaded the bed with gravel, building bars and back channels, with woody debris that fish use for cover. Trout sit on the seams along inside bends and at the heads and tails of the deep pools, and in autumn they sit close behind spawning salmon. Wading is hard in most places, which is why a boat finds more fish than boots do.
Fish and forage
Rainbow trout and bull trout are what you came for, with Dolly Varden in the upper river and suckers along the bottom. Sockeye, chinook, coho and kokanee all use the river, and the salmon set the menu from late summer on: eggs first, then rotting flesh. Before the salmon it is insects, stoneflies and caddis in early summer and mayflies in the slow water near the lake. Rainbows of several pounds turn up in a good year.
When to fish it
Mid-July to mid-October is the heart of it. Late June and July bring the stonefly and caddis evenings on the upper river, once its spring closure ends on 15 June. September and October are the sockeye weeks, best at Quesnel Forks and upstream. From March to mid-June, fish the lower river below the Cariboo River, around Sardine Creek and the Gravelle Ferry bridge, where the spring rise lifts and colours the water.
How to fish it
Use a 6- or 7-weight, 9 or 10 feet long so you can mend across the current, with a large-arbor reel, plenty of backing and a leader ending in 0X or 1X. These fish run.
In summer, put a Stimulator along the inside seam at dusk and let it drift without drag. If fish come up and refuse it, change down to an Elk Hair Caddis, and in the slower water near the lake to a Parachute Adams in sizes 12 to 16.
In autumn, find the spawning sockeye and stand below and off to the side of them. Dead-drift a single egg pattern on a floating line so it tumbles along the gravel behind the redds, where the trout wait. When the egg stops working, usually as the spawners start to die, change to a rabbit-strip flesh fly on a sink-tip and let it roll down the same lane. To find the bull trout, swing an egg-sucking leech in black or purple through the deep pools.
Access and safety
To reach Likely, turn east off Highway 97 onto the Likely road. The recreation site at Quesnel Forks is about 13 km beyond Likely on gravel, with a steep hill just before the campground. A rough, hilly gravel road leads to Bullion Pool, where you can fish from the bank; walk the last part unless you have a quad. For the lower river, take the Hydraulic road southeast from Quesnel to the Beavermouth recreation site, just before the creek bridge, and on to Gravelle Ferry. If you drift that stretch, stay river left about 2 km below Beavermouth; there is said to be a nasty whirlpool on the right. The river is big and fast, and there is a canyon above Quesnel, so know every take-out before you launch. In autumn, grizzlies and black bears feed on the same salmon you are fishing behind.
Regulations
On the whole river, bait is banned, and Region 5 requires a single barbless hook in all streams. A basic licence lets you fish one artificial fly on a line.
On the upper river, no fishing is allowed from 50 m upstream to 50 m downstream of the Likely Bridge, and the river above the Cariboo River is closed from 1 March to 15 June. From the boundary signs about 1.8 km east of the Likely Bridge down to Morehead Creek, all trout and char are catch and release.
Below Morehead Creek you may keep 1 trout or char a day, none under 40 cm; bull trout (Dolly Varden) caught in streams must be released from 1 August to 31 October, and all steelhead must be released. The rules list no closure on the river below the Cariboo River. Check the regulations before you fish the stretch through the town of Quesnel, and check in-season changes anywhere on the river. Fisheries and Oceans Canada sets the salmon rules.