Cowichan River

[Fins -n- Skins]

Be careful out there. Sorry late report but there are trees across at lower bible left side and right side where the river splits. Had to drag the drift boat around and was not fun. Rafts have it easier. Maybe someone had dealt with it by now ? On a side note 2 rafts have flipped already with the last one on Saturday at bible. Always changing condition out there.

 

[onefish]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[onefish]

First drift in 3 years, been drifting since the early 80's. Stoltz to Sandy today. Gorgeous day. Pretty straight forward drift, no trouble spots. River level 1.25, in the old days that would have meant lots of really nice water to fish. Sadly the trend of a shallower, straighter, swirly, sandy bottomed river, has continued. There were no grade A, can't miss spots, a couple of small B grade spots that should hold fish, and some edge of the swirl spots, but really a whole bunch of nothingness. A few other drifters, a few bank anglers. Really hard to give a decent fishing report given how little holding water there is on this stretch now. We manged to hook one. Pretty pathetic for the third week in Feb, but not surprising considering the lack of holding water.

 

[onefish]

Twice as good as the other day, progress I guess.

 

[calmsea]

First drift in 3 years, been drifting since the early 80's. Stoltz to Sandy today. Gorgeous day. Pretty straight forward drift, no trouble spots. River level 1.25, in the old days that would have meant lots of really nice water to fish. Sadly the trend of a shallower, straighter, swirly, sandy bottomed river, has continued. There were no grade A, can't miss spots, a couple of small B grade spots that should hold fish, and some edge of the swirl spots, but really a whole bunch of nothingness. A few other drifters, a few bank anglers. Really hard to give a decent fishing report given how little holding water there is on this stretch now. We manged to hook one. Pretty pathetic for the third week in Feb, but not surprising considering the lack of holding water.

What is changing the river?

 

[onefish]

From my observations I would say it is mostly infilling from bank erosion, some changes of river channels, and some important back channels getting choked off by logs and eventually drying up. The river from Stoltz to Sandy is virtually unrecognizable from when I started fishing it in the 80's. The other sections on the lower river have not changed nearly as much. I can't speak to the upper river as I have not drifted that section in many years.
It looks like the section from Stoltz to Sandy will have some decent holding water when the river gets really low. I would like to see what it looks like when the river gets to 0.9 m or so.
Just to put this into context. We used to drift it at 2.0m and find a few spots that were still really fishy even at that height. You really had to be on your toes at 2.0 m as things happen quick at that water level. Precise and quick anchoring is critical. I don't think I would even try fishing at 2.0 m anymore as the pullout at Sandy looks like it would be really tough to get in to at that height.

 

[Carmanah]

My experience is the last 15 years and I am not a biologist but I spend a lot of time on the river year round either fishing in the winter or hiking and swimming/snorkeling in the summer. The upper section above 70.2 has remained resilient to the high water events(2021) that have occurred vs below there has been a couple of significant changes. About a decade ago sawdust pool was partially cut off by a new channel that turned maybe 500m of river into 100m. The newish section below the 70.2 and the y pool/oxbow outlet has also done the same thing now the old channel is even dryer then sawdust is.

Lower river Washout corner was lost probably 5ish years ago, the area below sandy picnic pool or eagles roost has had some significant changes after the 2021 floods it made a side channel(north side) significantly larger and now the log jam that facilitated that has also shifted to cover the whole main channel now I wonder if we will also loose that corner which is a pretty busy salmon spawning area.

When I hike the river in the summer I like to snorkel my fishing holes to see what is happening and a lot of the side channels that are cutting corners are capturing the majority of the water during this time which isn't good. I have seen some remarkably large fish in the river in July and August there are obviously some springs left putting water into the system.

The first keystone to helping this river to me at least is a modern weir that can hold back more quality water for the dry season as well as the flood season maybe if that existed the river wouldn't have hit 3.5+ or 250 m/3 per second so many times in the last 10 years and punched so many corners out.

I have done some reading about the history of the river/settling and logging around Lake Cowichan which really kicked off in the early 20th century and by the 1930s it was really rolling, the river has been incredibly resilient considering what we have done.

 

[onefish]

An improved weir, to hold back water for the summer low flow periods, would be a huge gain, especially for coho and steelhead juveniles that spend more than one year in the river.