In a big pink year the Quinsam goes dark with fish. They turn in off the Campbell at the edge of town and push up through second-growth forest toward the hatchery, and by September the bears have found them too, working the same gravel bars you want to stand on.
The run lasts a few weeks, and the rest of the river is quieter than that crowd suggests. It comes in three parts. The lower river is a short, wooded run of pools from the Campbell up past the highway to the hatchery fence. Above the hatchery a long middle river climbs through Quinsam Lake to a falls below Middle Quinsam Lake. Above that is lake country, where the river is a chain of short reaches between the headwater lakes, reached by logging road.
Start on the lower river. Rough trails follow it upstream from the campground by the highway bridge, and anglers walk them through the whole year: winter steelhead, spring cutthroat tucked under fallen timber, the late-summer pinks, then coho into the fall. Most of the river’s fishing happens here, and in August it shows. Stop at the hatchery on the way: returning salmon are on view there from late July to mid-November.
The middle river is the stretch people drive past. It is closed from 1 December to 30 June, and when it reopens it gets almost none of the pressure the lower river does. Walk down two or three kilometres from Middle Quinsam Lake and you are on trout water with the river to yourself.
The headwaters belong to canoes. Upper Quinsam Lake is all bays and islands, and Wokas Lake at its far end, where a dam turns part of the river toward Campbell Lake, makes a good camp. The small river between the lakes sees few rods.
When the lower pools are shoulder to shoulder in late summer, that is the time to take the mainline up instead.
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.
The lower Quinsam is a small coast river with a lot of wood in it. Runs open below fallen trees, riffles drop into pools, and the river meets the Campbell about a kilometre above salt water. Dams on the headwater lakes hold back part of its flow, and floods still rearrange it: whole sections of bank trail have been torn up by high water.
The wood is where the resident fish live. Cutthroat sit under a fallen trunk and take what the current carries past its edge. Salmon moving upstream rest in the deeper pools and in the slow tail of a run before the next riffle, and steelhead use the same tailouts. Read each pool from its tail first, because that is where a travelling fish stops.
Fish and forage
Chinook and coho follow the pinks in the fall, most of the chinook hatchery fish. The hatchery also raises steelhead, and winter steelhead are among the river’s most sought-after fish.
Cutthroat are here all year. On coastal rivers they feed hard on salmon fry heading to sea in spring, a habit borrowed from the coast at large rather than timed on the Quinsam, and it is why a swung fry pattern works here. Middle Quinsam Lake holds rainbow and cutthroat.
When to fish it
From December to the end of June, only two parts of the river can be fished: the lower river below the hatchery signs, and the headwater reaches above Middle Quinsam Lake. Winter steelhead are the lower river’s fish from December into April. April and May bring cutthroat on the fry, again on the lower river, along the Quinsam Road stretch and down toward Flintoff Creek.
The middle river opens on 1 July, and in July you can have the water below Middle Quinsam Lake to yourself.
Pinks reach the lower river from late July and the hatchery by September. The river’s listing exempts it from the 15 July to 31 August summer closure, so the lower and middle river stay open through the run; whether you may keep a pink is Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s call.
October and November are coho months, with chinook moving too, on the lower river and on the middle river until it closes again on 1 December.
How to fish it
BC allows one fly on the line, so fish one and change it. For cutthroat, stand above a run with wood in it and swing a muddler or a small fry pattern across and down past the trunk. If fish slash at the swing and miss, change to a size 18 black nymph and dead-drift it along the seam at the edge of the wood.
For pinks, a small pink fly drifted slowly at their depth beats anything stripped fast through them. If they ignore it, go smaller, or move down toward the Campbell, where the fish are fresher. Hook them in the mouth: snagging is illegal, and a fish hooked anywhere else goes back at once.
Coho hold in slow, deep water. Let the fly sink before a slow retrieve, and if nothing follows, change colour before you change pools. For steelhead, swing the tailouts with a long mend to slow the fly, and fish a blank run again slower and deeper before moving on.
Access and safety
Take Highway 28 west from Campbell River. The Quinsam campground in Elk Falls park turns off on the west side of the highway bridge, and about two kilometres of rough trail follow the river upstream from it; floods have left some sections in very poor shape. You can also turn onto Quinsam Road, park on the left past the bridge and walk upriver, or park at the hatchery on Argonaut Road and walk down, as long as you are out before the gate closes.
A wheelchair-accessible fishing platform sits near the Highway 28 bridge, at the end of a hard-packed gravel path with one steep pitch where you may need a hand. Cross the highway on foot with care; it is busy.
Around the hatchery the river is closed all year, from the boundary signs at the power line about 25 m above the weir down to the signs about 300 m below it. Bears come to the pinks: make noise on the trail, and give a bear on the river the pool.
The Argonaut logging mainline and its branches reach the upper river and the lakes, where Middle Quinsam has two recreation sites and a car-top launch. Expect logging trucks.
Regulations
The Quinsam is a Region 1 stream: a single barbless hook and the stream bait ban apply all year. Release all wild trout, all wild steelhead and all char, including Dolly Varden. You may keep hatchery trout, marked by a healed scar where the adipose fin was: no more than 2 from streams within a daily quota of 4 trout, and only 1 over 50 cm, except that 2 hatchery steelhead over 50 cm are allowed. Fishing for steelhead needs a steelhead conservation surcharge stamp on your basic licence, and a hatchery steelhead you keep must be recorded on it at once.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada sets salmon seasons and limits; check them before you fish for salmon. Check the regulations separately for the Quinsam lakes, and for in-season changes before you go.
Where next
The Campbell is next door, with fly-only water above the Quinsam mouth and closures of its own, so read its rules before you cross over. For quiet water, the bays of Upper Quinsam lead on toward Wokas, a canoe and a light rod away.