Below Coalmont the Tulameen runs through a canyon of red rock. By late September, with the summer heat gone and the river dropped back between its boulders, the water is clear enough that you can count the stones on the bottom of a pool. Prospectors came for the gravel here, because this is the river where gold and platinum turn up together. Today the gravel holds wild rainbows, mostly small, and a lot of whitefish.
The river is easiest to read in three parts. It comes down out of Manning Park in the Cascades and runs north through forest, past a short canyon and a waterfall. At the village of Tulameen it turns east and opens into a valley past Coalmont, the old mining town. Below Coalmont it drops into the red canyon and runs down to Princeton, where it joins the Similkameen.
The canyon below Coalmont is the place to start. It is pocket water and plunge pools under cliffs, with an old railway grade above the river that makes it a walk rather than a scramble when the trail is passable. Fish the edges and keep moving.
The valley around Tulameen and Coalmont is the easy water: gentler runs, a recreation site on the river at the mouth of Granite Creek, and a lake at the village for the days the river is high. This is where to learn the river before you climb.
The headwaters up the forest roads beyond Tulameen are the part few people bother with. The road follows the river past a small campsite at Vuich Falls toward the canyon at Holding Creek and Tulameen Falls, and what you find there is small trout in cold water. Go up for the walk and the falls, with modest hopes for the fish.
The whole river closes from 30 July to 15 September, so this is water for July and for the weeks after mid-September.
When you know the canyon, follow the water down to Princeton and onto the Similkameen, which carries it east past Bromley Rock.
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
This is a snowmelt river that can turn violent. Its flow usually peaks from mid-April to mid-July, and in November 2021 it broke the dikes at Princeton and changed its course in places, so banks and pools may not be where an older map puts them. Low, warm water in hot spells is hard on the trout.
Fish hold where the river gives them depth and shelter from the current: the slots behind boulders in the canyon, the soft water at the tail of a plunge pool, and the seam along a cut bank in the valley. Whitefish gather in the deeper, slower pools, especially as the water cools.
When to fish it
The river is exempt from the Okanagan’s spring closure, so its season runs either side of the summer gap.
Early July, once runoff falls, is the first good window, through the canyon below Coalmont and the valley around Tulameen, and it ends when the river closes on 30 July. Spring before that is usually too high and coloured for a fly.
From 16 September, when the closure lifts, through October is the best of the year in the canyon below Coalmont: low, clear, cool water and trout that have had six weeks of peace. From October into winter, the deep pools in the canyon and around Granite Creek are whitefish water.
How to fish it
You fish one fly at a time. In July, start with a size 12 or 14 Tom Thumb or Elk Hair Caddis, and put it on the seam at the head of a pocket or along the edge of a plunge pool. Short casts, high rod, a drag-free float of a metre or two, then move up to the next pocket.
If nothing rises after a few pockets, change to a stonefly nymph and dead-drift it along the bottom of the same slot. After mid-September the fish are often lower in the water, so start with the nymph and go to a Stimulator only when you see a rise.
For whitefish from October into winter, fish a small bead-head nymph slow and deep through the tail of a pool. In clear water you can often see the schools first. Wade carefully in the canyon; the boulders are big and the current is stronger than it looks.
Access and safety
A paved road leaves Highway 3 at Princeton and runs up the valley to Coalmont and Tulameen. Granite Creek Recreation Site, beside the river just outside Coalmont, has campsites and is a busy base for off-road vehicles. Don’t follow Granite Creek up into its canyons: a mine adit there takes almost the whole creek underground.
The old railway grade, now part of the Trans Canada Trail, follows the river from Coalmont through the canyon to Princeton, with small tunnels and river access along the way. Floods washed out parts of it and it may still be closed in places, so check its status before you set out on it.
Above Tulameen, the forest service roads follow the river toward Manning Park. Vuich Falls Recreation Site has a few campsites and a steep cliff to watch. A trail of about 2 km leads to Tulameen Falls, over rough ground with no railings. After rain or in snowmelt this river rises fast; cross it only where you can see the bottom.