Slocan River

The Slocan is a wild rainbow trout river with a comeback story. It drains the south end of Slocan Lake at Slocan City and runs about 57 km south past Winlaw and Passmore to the Kootenay at Shoreacres, between Nelson and Castlegar. The rainbows crashed in the 1980s and the province closed the river in 1993. It reopened in the mid-1990s as catch and release only, and it still is: every trout and char goes back. Mountain whitefish and bull trout live here too. Do not plan on cutthroat: the provincial records hold a single one, from 1986.

The upper river below Slocan City is broad, flat water that bends slowly through farmland. Below Winlaw it speeds up, with rapids under the Winlaw bridge and swift, rocky water from Passmore to Crescent Valley. Region 4 streams are closed April 1 to June 14, so the season opens on the snowmelt, which peaks in June and drops through July. Read the Crescent Valley gauge for the trend. Summer is the hard part: the river is warmest from late July to mid-August, and in hot years the local Streamkeepers' loggers read over 20 °C on many days. The river is closed from noon to midnight from July 15 to August 31, so fish the mornings. Local accounts describe chironomids, mayflies, stoneflies, salmonflies and caddis, but no one has published a dated hatch calendar for this river.

On a hot afternoon the Slocan is a float river for tubers and paddleboarders, and the Slocan Valley Rail Trail runs 52 km beside it from South Slocan to Slocan, with road bridges across the river at Crescent Valley, Slocan Park, Passmore, Winlaw, Perry's Siding and Slocan. Farms and homes line much of the floodplain, so use the bridges and the rail trail to reach the water. Lemon Creek, which held more trout than any other index site in the 2005 counts, is closed to fishing. Nelson and Castlegar are each about 45 minutes from Winlaw, and the nearest fly shop is in Castlegar.