Story and Photography by Peter McMullan
The big boulder stands well to the left of the summer-weight stream, its feet in water only inches deep, its shoulders dried and bleached by sun and wind. Back in March the same rock was close to mid-river just above an all but submerged outcrop islet. First impressions were of a potential holding place for a worthwhile fish, a robust resident brown trout or perhaps a late-run steelhead.
By July the picture is much changed and yet the location, the water level thinned by a good two to three feet, remains full of promise. The stream, strong enough in spring to make for a challenging, deep-wading crossing to the edge of the outcrop and then to the relatively calm water behind the big stone, still runs strongly as it curls back towards the fallen remains of a substantial tree.
The aquatic shelter this windfall provides close to the bank stirs the imagination. The pool below is wide and deep offering perfect cover for fish of all sizes. As the square cast traverses the flow we anticipate the take. Concentration is everything; the senses are never more attuned to the moment. No brown trout this time; instead a 15 inch rainbow comes to a nymph in bright sunshine to prove its vulnerability to the right fly. Then it plays strongly, twisting and turning in the clear water.
Vancouver Island’s fabled Cowichan River has again captured my attention and with good reason. Its reputation is with the very best, a largely unspoiled if increasingly popular year-round destination within easy reach of the island’s two main centres, to the south Victoria, to the north Nanaimo.
In the early 1950s, when I first knew the Cowichan as an 18-year-old recently arrived in Canada from Northern Ireland, our main angling emphasis was on the winter runs of steelhead. There was exciting fishing then for eager young men who made light of treacherous roads and often thigh-deep snow on the trails to the most popular holding water. Being freshmen college students it seemed natural to find time to fish as often as possible, often during the week when the week-end crowds, or what we saw as crowds in those long-ago times, were elsewhere earning a living.
A faded clipping from the Victoria Colonist’s weekly fishing column, which diligently recorded the outings of local sports anglers, reminds me of one particular day from those times. It’s dated, January 23, 1954:
"Sextette of young Victorians tried for steelhead Sunday in Cowichan River below Sahtlam. They caught two but hooked into a total of 10. Party was composed of Mike Rippingale, Bill Ballantyne, Michael Rose, Lyle Williamson, Jim Clements and Pete McMullan. The last two caught the fish. River is low and clear, reported Rippingale".
 My fishing diary notes a steelhead of just over eight pounds taken on a weighted cherry bobber and fixed spool spinning gear. It was a bitterly cold day, snowing with upwards of three feet already on the ground. I had caught a fish of similar size just before New Year but then the weather was mild and the river at medium height and slightly coloured. By the time the 1955 steelhead season came around Canada was just a memory and I was back in Belfast learning my trade as a journalist.
Those were my last Cowichan steelhead until I ran into two in less than three weeks while fishing for trout in the spring of this year. They were small, wild fish, both under six pounds, taken respectively on a Muddler Minnow and a bead head nymph fished on a sink tip and five feet of six pound test leader.
The rod was a two piece, six weight Sage with a Hardy Princess reel, a treasured gift from my wife, Daphne, more than 40 years ago. No reel can have given better service or been more heavily used. Hardy is truly an apt name for the family founders of this legendary fishing establishment. The hope now is that it will see me out my time and many more productive trips in the years ahead.
The two steelhead came from different sections of a long, strong run not that far above the big boulder and both took me well downstream for final release in comparatively slack water on the inside of the next bend. With the river well up on each occasion they would surely have been lost but for the diminished flow at that location.
A low water survey of the same pool in mid-summer was revealing and invaluable with potential steelhead lies for the coming season clearly seen, a substantial rock that swings the flow from right to left, another further downstream equally inviting. In winter they will again be deeply covered, marked only by subtle changes in the quick-moving surface flow, but casting from memory I will hopefully position the fly at just the right angle and location.
Fresh locations always bring the challenge of the unknown but our home rivers, and I am now fortunate to be able to view the Cowichan in that light, are the ones that really matter, the chosen ones to which we return again and again.
I have found Cowichan fishing is seldom easy but the surroundings are visually superb. Densely treed along its ‘fly only’ upper reaches, there are some four miles of lovely pools and runs above the long-abandoned 70.2 mile railway trestle . From its source at Lake Cowichan, the river hurries along an often-rugged course of some 27 miles to its tidal estuary in Cowichan Bay. There are 98 named pools along the way.
The visitor can expect brown and rainbow trout over the 12 months of the year with cutthroat trout in the lower reaches. Chinook, coho and chum salmon arrive in late summer and early fall and then steelhead run from December through April.
Water levels are the key for the fly fisherman.The lake and weir at the outlet provide a controlled flow but, after heavy rain in the hills, there are days when flood waters are just too big for effective fly presentation. High waters limit wading opportunities too. Drift boats get fly fishermen to the best runs, but in the summer when water levels drop they are put out of service.
Walking from pool to pool, along shaded forest trails, is an essential part of the whole Cowichan experience with so much to see. In season there are otters and hummingbirds, eagles and mink, mergansers and woodpeckers and many other smaller songbirds.
The best of the trout fishing comes in the early months, March, April and May, when the dry fly opportunities peak. The river is good again in fall and early winter when a bountiful abundance of salmon eggs catches the attention of the browns and brings the rainbows back down from the lake.
During high summer, water temperatures rise, the river falls to a more easily waded level and fishing pressure eases with the regulars anxious to avoid imposing any undue stress on the stock of browns, which were introduced in the early 1930s..
How big do the Cowichan browns run today? It is not uncommon, especially for bottom bouncing steelheaders, to catch trout of 8-10 lbs. I heard of one brown taken recently, estimated at 14 lbs., but fish that big are surely rare. My own best to date, from dozen or more visits between March and July, would have been a brown of close on 2 lbs. with a number of others half that size. There was one short, plump, vividly marked brown of well over 2 lbs., that broke off when the leader twisted around the rod tip. That was in the slack water behind the big rock where this story started, and to where I will soon return.
IF YOU GO:
British Columbia freshwater fishing regulations for the Cowichan generally require catch and release for wild trout and for all but hatchery steelhead. There is a two-a-day wild and hatchery trout/char quota above the Greendale Road trestle bridge in Lake Cowichan Village, although I firmly believe all river trout should be released unharmed.
As to the salmon, which fall under federal jurisdiction, there is a maximum size limit of 50 cm for chinook along with a four-a-day limit. Only one coho a day can be retained and it cannot be more than 35 cm in length.
There are two different Cowichan maps available in Vancouver Island fishing tackle stores. The Cowichan River Footpath and Map, was first produced by the Cowichan Fish and Game Association many years ago, and is now hard to find. It details both the river’s course and the 19-mile riverbank trail, completed in January 1969 and running upstream from the Robertson Road club house, outside Duncan, to the Old Lake Cowichan Road between Otter Pool and Rip’s Run.
More recently the Haig Brown Fly Fishing Association, based in Victoria, has produced an updated color version. This Cowichan River Map would be a near essential for any newcomer to the river and indeed most useful to all but a very few who know it intimately from source to sea. My copy retailed at $7.99 with all proceeds being donated to the Haig-Brown Fly Fishing Association Conservation Fund. The Association has its own website, reached through a link on the B.C. Federation of Fly Fishers site www.bcfff.bc.ca or contact can be by mail to Box 6454, Depot # 1, Victoria B.C. V8P 5M4.
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