People used to call it the Little Salmon River, to tell it apart from the bigger river to the east that is now the McGregor. Little or not, it earns the name: chinook still come up it from the Fraser to spawn, and it is counted among the main chinook rivers of the country north of Prince George. Half an hour from the city, it is a salmon river the Hart Highway crosses on a bridge on its way north.
The shape is simple. The river rises above Salmon Lake, runs through the lake, and then winds a long way southeast, past two forest roads, under the highway and past the community of Salmon Valley to the Fraser. Read it as three parts: the valley water near the highway, the back-road middle, and the lake and headwaters.
The valley water is where to start. A campground sits on the bank a short way off the highway bridge, with riverside sites, so you can fish the evening and the morning from your tent. Walk up from your site at dusk with a dry fly and fish each run as you come to it. In a river with a salmon run, the rainbows tend to run bigger than in the creeks around it, and finding out how big is the point of the first evening.
The middle river is for a second visit. Two forest service roads reach it away from the highway, the Merton Road and, farther up, the 1500 Road, and what the river holds along them is yours to find out. Bring a map and a hunch.
The lake and the water above it are the far end, for when you know the river and have a forest road map open on the seat beside you. The fishing there is unproven, which is either a warning or the best reason to go.
When you have walked the valley water, the Crooked River to the north and the Nechako to the south and west are the next two rivers to know.
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.
This is a river of big swings. It runs high and fast on the spring melt and can drop very low in a dry summer, so the same run can be a torrent on one visit and a trickle between stones on the next. In low water, look for fish in the deepest runs, under the banks and in the shade of any wood in the channel, where the current still brings food and the depth gives cover. In higher water they slide to the soft edges and the inside of bends. The gravel the chinook spawn on is worth knowing, and worth staying off when they are on it.
Fish and forage
Chinook spawn here. The streams around Prince George hold mostly small rainbows, with some large bull trout among them, and that is the likely picture on the Salmon too. Its trout are unproven rather than absent. Expect small fish, and if a whitefish or a char turns up instead, that is part of what you came to find out.
When to fish it
The rules list no closure for any reach of the Salmon River through the year; check in-season changes before you go.
Wait for the spring melt to drop and clear before you expect much. Summer is the easiest time, with the campground open and the river low enough to wade. Late summer, when the upper Fraser’s chinook are generally on their spawning gravel, is the time to look for trout working behind the salmon in the valley water. The campground’s season varies from year to year, so look it up before you plan on a site.
How to fish it
Start with a small dry fly in the evening water near the campground: a Parachute Adams or an Elk Hair Caddis, borrowed from the Crooked River, where both work. Fish it upstream into the head of each run and let it come back to you without drag. If nothing rises, change to a small bead-head nymph and dead-drift it along the deepest seam. If you are hoping for a bull trout, change again to a large streamer and swing it slowly through the tail of the biggest pool, close to any cover. One fly at a time.
When chinook are on the redds, an egg pattern drifted below them is the change to make, as it is on the Stellako when its sockeye spawn. Fish it from the bank or from water below the gravel, never across it.
Access and safety
For the valley water, drive north from Prince George on Highway 97, cross the river on the bridge, and take the first right onto Salmon Valley Road for the campground. The Merton Road and 1500 Road forest service roads lead to the middle river; both are logging roads, so watch for trucks, and carry a forest road map. In spring the river can be high, cold and fast enough to knock you over: wade only when you can see the bottom.
Regulations
The Salmon River is exempt from the region’s spring stream closure, so no reach of it closes for spring. The region’s stream rules apply: a bait ban and single barbless hooks all year. Where you keep trout, the regional daily quota is 5 trout and char, only 2 of them from streams and only 1 over 50 cm. Bull trout must be released from streams all year, and Arctic grayling are catch and release. For chinook and other salmon, check the federal rules for the current season before you fish.