Pull in at the continental divide rest area on the Alaska Highway and the ground barely rises: a few humps of sand and gravel decide whether rain runs east to the Arctic or west into the Swift. Water that goes west has a long way ahead of it, to Teslin Lake, down the Yukon River and out to the Bering Sea. Late each summer,
chinook salmon come the whole way back up that route to spawn in the Swift.
The river comes in two halves. For its first stretch it runs west beside the highway, close to the Yukon border, and widens into Swan Lake. Below the lake it leaves the road, collects the Smart River, passes through Swift Lake and runs on to the east shore of Teslin Lake. The top half you can fish from the car; the bottom half you have to work for.
The upper river is where to start. The highway follows it from the divide, with a large parking area beside the water a few kilometres west, then more pullouts and a rest area on the way down to a highway maintenance camp. This is grayling water, small and clear and close to the road, and each creek mouth, Partridge Creek’s among them, is worth a stop.
Swan Lake lies just south of the highway, with a rest area and a view over it. It holds
lake trout and whitefish rather than the river’s grayling, and you need a BC licence to fish it. Its outlet, where the lake turns back into river, is the place to be in the evening.
The lower river is the one to save for a second visit. Once it turns away from the highway it runs through small rapids, said to stop jet boats, takes in the Smart, and drops through Swift Lake toward Teslin Lake. It is far from any road, and it is the part of the Swift you would have to find for yourself.
When the upper river has given you its grayling, the Morley River crosses the highway further west with a day-use area on its bank, and on the far side of the divide the Rancheria runs the other way, toward the Arctic.
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.
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 upper Swift is a small, clear river in the Cassiar Mountains, running over gravel beside the road. Grayling hold in riffle tails, in the soft water along the inside of bends and in the seams below creek mouths, where colder water and drifting insects come in. Swan Lake breaks the river in two, and its outlet is the best single piece of holding water you can reach on foot. Below Swift Lake the river crosses a plateau to Teslin Lake, slower and bigger.
When to fish it
Summer is the season, from the end of the spring melt into September. In the next valley over, the Rancheria’s grayling fish best in August, and the Swift, a few kilometres away across the divide, is likely similar. Late August brings the chinook onto their spawning gravel, so fish around them, not over them.
How to fish it
Grayling rise freely and see well in clear water. Start with a small dark dry fly, size 14 to 16, dead-drifted along a seam on a 3- or 4-weight with a short, light line. If they come up and refuse, go smaller; if they won’t come up at all, change to a small black wet fly and let it swing through the tail of the run. Keep moving: a run that has given you three or four fish has usually given you the ones willing to eat.
On Swan Lake, cast a streamer along the drop-off near the outlet in the evening, and count it down a little deeper each cast until you find the fish.