Cheakamus River

The Cheakamus River is a beautiful tributary of the Squamish River that runs parrallel to the Sea to Sky highway between Squamish and Whistler. Only the lower 17kms are Salmon and Steelhead bearing and hold the biggest resident Dollys, Bulls, and Rainbows due to a waterfall which acts as a natural barrier. Not too far above the waterfall is a dam so in between the two is unfishable. Above the dam you can find Rainbow trouts although they are a lot smaller than the ones found below the waterfall. The fishing is still recovering after a tragic accident, a railway tanker carrying sodium hydroxide crashed and spilled the chemical into the river drastically affecting the fishing population. The accident was in 2005, so the river is still recovering and looking better and better every year. The best time to fish this river is between August and May because the other months are affected by freshet and unfishable. The river has hatchery Coho, Chinook, a strong run of Pinks, smaller Rainbows in the 20-25cm range, large Dolly Vardens and Bull Trout and a very sensitive, recovering Steelhead run.

Went fishing up to the Cheakamus River with my lovely girlfriend Rachel, brother-in-law Tim, and cousin Trevor. We first fished the river just north of the one way bridge off a dirt road. The fishing was fast and furious, picking up pinks on every second cast. In the four hours we fished this part of the river as a group we landed over 20 fish losing a countless amount of others. The avrerage size Pink was five pounds with our largest being six and a half. The next spot we checked out was about 8kms up river off another dirt road we found, and it was just as exciting as the last place. Spent about the same amount of time there and landed 20 plus fish there as well. All and all it was a crazy day lots of fish and fun.