Red Deer River

The Red Deer below Dickson Dam is central Alberta's trout tailwater. The dam, built in 1983 west of Innisfail, draws its water from the bottom of Gleniffer Lake, so the first 20 km or so below it run cooler in summer and steadier than a mountain freestone. Brown trout are the reason to come. There are not many of them, but the ones you find can be big, and they are wary. Mountain whitefish fill in the rest of the catch, often in large numbers. Alberta's fisheries managers name brown trout and whitefish as the priority from the dam down to Joffre Bridge, and every trout you catch goes back. Come for one good brown, not for numbers.

This is big water, and most anglers fish it from a drift boat or a raft. The standard floats are the dam down to the Highway 54 bridge, a full day, and Highway 54 down to the ramp at A-Soo-Wuh-Um on Highway 592, a short half day. Read the flow at the Dickson Dam gauge, which shows what the dam releases. The province keeps at least 16 m³/s (565 cfs) in the river through winter. From there up to about 35 m³/s (1,235 cfs) you can wade the riffles and edges near the access points. A boat fishes best at about 20 to 70 m³/s (705 to 2,470 cfs), and summer releases often sit in that range when the reservoir passes runoff. Above about 60 m³/s (2,120 cfs) wading is over and you fish streamers to the banks from a boat. The dam water stays clear, but the Little Red Deer and the Medicine join in the first float, and a hard rain on either one puts colour in the river below them. Expect caddis all season, PMDs in summer, drakes in late June and early July, tricos and hoppers from August, and BWOs and October caddis in the fall. A sculpin streamer in low light is the steady way to find a big brown, and October is when they turn aggressive before the spawn.

Plan around three things. First, the season: the river is closed March 2 to May 14, so the spring skwala hatch that anglers fish on other foothills rivers happens while it is shut. It stays open through winter to March 1, when the whitefish nymphing and the maggot fishery take over: maggots are the only bait allowed. Second, access: private farmland lines most of the banks. You reach the water at the Gleniffer Reservoir day-use areas below the dam, the Markerville Natural Area, the Highway 54 and Highway 592 bridges, and the city parks in Red Deer, and you stay below the high-water mark. Third, distance from the dam: below the city of Red Deer the river warms, the browns thin out, and pike, walleye and goldeye take over, under the same rules all the way to Tolman Bridge. The upper Red Deer above Gleniffer Lake, past Sundre, is a different river, a foothills freestone with its own rules, and this page does not cover it. The Raven and the North Raven (Stauffer Creek), brown trout streams near Caroline, also join the river above the reservoir.