Kootenay River

The Kootenay is the big river of the East Kootenay, running down the Rocky Mountain Trench from Kootenay National Park past Canal Flats, Skookumchuck, Wasa and Fort Steele to Lake Koocanusa. It is glacial water: milky green and cold in summer, and clear in spring and fall, which is when it fishes. Bull trout are the headline, big migratory fish that grow fat on whitefish and kokanee, and westslope cutthroat and mountain whitefish fill in the rest. Below the White River it is not classified water, and it is open all year: catch and release through the winter, then one fish a day from April 1, while the smaller streams around it stay closed until June 15.

Fish it in March and April, before the snowmelt, and again from mid-September to mid-November, when the glacial flour settles out. In summer the river runs high and opaque, and the St. Mary, the Elk and the Bull are better bets. Read the Fort Steele gauge: the river is in good fall shape under about 100 m³/s and runs many times that in June. It is float water, wide and braided, fished by raft, drift boat or jet boat, with gravel bars to wade from at lower flows. Big streamers swung or stripped along the gravel drop-offs bring the bull trout, and nymphs work for cutthroat and whitefish. Cutthroat rise to blue-winged olives and October caddis on calm fall afternoons.

The Kootenay has a bait ban all year, and from Koocanusa up to the White River it keeps one trout or char a day from April 1 to October 31: no trout under 30 cm and no bull trout under 75 cm. Release them anyway: the big bull trout are the river's spawning stock. It is catch and release from November 1 to March 31. Jet boats share the river, and the braids change from year to year, so watch for sweepers and new channels. Cranbrook and Kimberley are 20 minutes from the Wasa and Fort Steele launches, and about an hour from Canal Flats.