Sumas Prairie was a lake until the 1920s, when it was drained for farmland. The river that fed it still runs across the old lakebed, held between dykes, and from mid-September into December coho come in off the Fraser and push up it past berry fields and dairy farms. In the floods of November 2021 the prairie filled and the lake briefly came back, and sturgeon washed out of the river ended up stranded at the pump station at its mouth. Anglers and volunteers carried them back over the station into the Sumas.
The river has three parts. It flows north out of Washington and crosses the border into Abbotsford as a small farm river, running across the prairie under a grid of country roads. Below a small tributary called Marshall Creek it runs on between dykes past Atkinson and Lakemount roads. In its last few kilometres the Vedder Canal comes in from Chilliwack, and the joined water runs out past the floodgates and pumps at Barrowtown into the Fraser.
The prairie water, from the border past the Trans-Canada Highway to Marshall Creek, is the part almost nobody fishes. Bridges at Boundary, Vye and Whatcom roads give you a look at it, and the land on both sides is farmed. It is the least known part of the river: expect the same slow-water fish as below, and no company.
The middle channel, from Marshall Creek to the Vedder, is the stretch to learn once you have the lower river worked out, and a place to look for cutthroat in spring and fall.
The lower river below the Vedder confluence is where to start. A flat gravel dyke trail follows it to the pump station, with parking at Barrowtown, and the deeper water where the two rivers meet is the first place to look for coho. Sturgeon come up from the Fraser, and
steelhead and
Dolly Varden are caught too.
The water is poor, and the river carries naturally occurring asbestos down from a landslide across the border. Signs along it warn about the water, and they are worth reading before you wade.
Walk the dyke from Barrowtown on a September evening and watch for the first coho rolling where the Vedder comes in.
Water and habitat
The Sumas is a lowland river on a flat floor: dyked, slow, and coloured by sediment carried down from Washington. It holds little of the riffle-and-pool water a trout angler expects, so fish sit where the river gives them something: outside bends where the channel deepens, the slots under bridges, and the mouths of side creeks and ditches where cooler or fresher water comes in. On the lower river the meeting with the Vedder Canal is the edge to watch, since fish coming up from the Fraser have a choice to make there.
How to fish it
A 6- or 7-weight rod with a sink-tip line handles coho and the occasional steelhead; a 4- or 5-weight is enough for cutthroat. For coho, cast a single small streamer or leech across and slightly down, let it sink, and strip it back slowly through the deeper water at the Vedder confluence or along an outside bend. If they follow and turn away, slow down and drop a size; if nothing follows, change colour or go deeper before you move. For cutthroat, work one small sculpin or minnow pattern tight along cover, then try a small nymph dead-drifted down a bridge slot if they won’t chase. One fly on the line at a time.
Stand back from the bank edge and cast from the dyke slope where you can. The banks are soft, and the less sediment you stir up, the better for you.
Access and safety
The dyke trail along the lower Sumas and the Vedder Canal runs about 8 km one way, flat and double-wide on gravel, with no shade. Park at the Barrowtown Pump Station, near the rod and gun club, or at Hougen Park on Cole Road. Parts of the dyke trail have closed for maintenance before, so check with the City of Abbotsford. Stay well clear of the pump station’s gates and intakes. There are few services along the river, so bring water and something against the sun and wind.
Up on the prairie the river crosses farmland. Provincial rules forbid entering or crossing cultivated, posted or private land, or Indian Reserve land, without permission, so ask before you walk a bank between bridges.
The asbestos comes from a slow landslide on the Sumas Mountain in Washington, not the one above Abbotsford. It washes sediment down a creek into the Sumas, the river carries it across the border, and it keeps building up on the Canadian side, with each flood spreading it further. Dry, disturbed sediment can release fibres. Keep off dredge piles and don’t kick up dry banks. Rinse your waders and boots before you get back in the car, and don’t eat what you catch.
Regulations
The Sumas has no listing of its own in the Lower Mainland tables, so only the regional and provincial rules apply to it. A single barbless hook is required in all streams of the region, all year, and only one artificial fly may be on the line. Wild trout and char from streams must be released, and so must all wild steelhead; you need a Conservation Surcharge Stamp on your licence to fish for steelhead anywhere in BC. White sturgeon are catch and release only, and fishing for them in the Fraser watershed, tributaries included, from the CPR Bridge at Mission upstream needs a White Sturgeon Conservation Licence on top of your basic licence. Salmon, coho included, are managed by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, so check its rules and openings for the Sumas before you fish for them, and check the provincial regulations for in-season changes.
When the Sumas runs out of surprises, follow the dyke up the Vedder Canal toward the mountains, to a bigger river with a reputation of its own.