By October the snowmelt has run out of the Similkameen, and
mountain whitefish that have finished spawning drop back into the cold pools, where they stay into February. Eagles and ospreys work the same water. The inner tubes and rafts that float the river in the heat are long gone, and the pools under the bridges have gone quiet.
The river rises high in Manning Park and runs east beside Highway 3 almost the whole way to the US border, so much of it can be read from a pull-out. It comes in four parts. In the park it is a small mountain river. Below the park it squeezes into a canyon and drops over Similkameen Falls. At Princeton it takes in the Tulameen and becomes a bigger river of fast runs and deep pools down past Hedley. From Keremeos it slows through an open valley of orchards and ranches to the border. A dam in Washington with no fish ladder keeps salmon out of the BC river, so what you catch here lives here.
Start at a place called Bromley Rock, east of Princeton, where the river slows into a calm pool under a rock face and a small provincial park campground sits on the bank. It is the river’s best-known whitefish water, with wild rainbows in the runs on either side. Downstream, a second small park just west of Hedley, Stemwinder, is the other public way down to the bank, with Class 2 and 3 rapids between the two.
The lower river from the Red Bridge in Keremeos down past Cawston to the old wooden bridge at Chopaka holds the same rainbows and whitefish in gentler water. Much of the bank runs through orchards and private land, so the bridges are where you get on.
The headwaters are the surprise. Inside Manning Park the river carries cutthroat and
bull trout as well as rainbows, and a flat trail follows it from the river bridge near the park resort east to Castle Creek.
Leave the canyon for looking at. When you have learned the main river, the Tulameen at Princeton and the Ashnola west of Keremeos carry the same fish up their own valleys.
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.
Likely
Older records here, recent stocking, a local guide or fly shop, a guide listing, or recent records on connected water nearby.
Water and habitat
The Similkameen is a freestone river fed by mountain snow. Runoff peaks in late spring, around mid-May in some years and later after a cool spring, and the river floods hard: it and the Tulameen have flooded Princeton more than once. Through the middle and lower valley it alternates fast runs over rock with deep pools, and the rocky stretches are where fish feed. Whitefish gather in the slow, deep water of pools and tailouts in the cold months, and in riffles such as the one below the Fairground bridge near Keremeos. Rainbows sit at the seams where a fast run slows against a pool, and in the broken water at the heads of riffles.
When to fish it
The river is exempt from the Okanagan spring stream closure, so it can be fished before runoff, and the weeks before the snow comes off are worth a look at Bromley Rock and below Princeton. During the peak of runoff the river is high and coloured; wait for it to drop and clear, which can take into June.
The whole river is closed from 30 July to 15 September. From 16 September, trout fishing below Princeton and through the Keremeos valley picks up as the water cools, and October to February is whitefish time in the cold pools at Bromley Rock and down to Chopaka.
How to fish it
A 9-foot 5-weight covers most of the river. For whitefish, fish one small weighted nymph dead-drifted close to the bottom through the slow middle of a pool, and stand at the head of the pool so the fly drifts down the length of it. A size 12 stonefly nymph is a reasonable start; it is a proven whitefish pattern on the Washington stretch of the same river. If nothing takes, add weight before you change the fly, because whitefish sit low and rarely move up for a nymph that passes over them. Then go smaller.
For rainbows, fish the seams and riffle heads with a dry fly when fish are rising, casting up and across so the fly drifts without drag. When the surface is quiet, cut the dry off and tie on a nymph or a small streamer, and swing it across the tail of the run. Move every few casts; the fish in a run are either in the seam or not.
Access and safety
Highway 3 follows the river from the park to the border, and Highway 5A runs north from Princeton. Bromley Rock Provincial Park has a small riverside campground open from spring into September, and Stemwinder Park west of Hedley is the other public bank access. In Keremeos the Red Bridge is the usual put-in for floats, and floaters also use Princeton’s bridges and the wooden bridge at Chopaka. Manning Park has several campgrounds and the riverside trail to Castle Creek, where windfall has been reported after winter.
The current is fast and the pools are deep. Wade with care in spring, and stay off the river in high water. Do not cross orchards, ranches, posted land or reserve land without permission. Bromley Rock is a traditional fishing site, important to the Upper Similkameen Band and other First Nations; treat it that way.