Lillooet River

Flowing south for nearly 200 kilometres to the head of Harrison Lake, the Lillooet is a land lost in time. Once a passage for gold seekers bound for the Cariboo, it is now a fly-fisher’s dream. The fish here are some of the most magnificent on the planet: wild, aggressive, plentiful and big.

Remarkably, this wilderness can be reached as a day trip about an hour and forty-five minutes east of Vancouver. You travel up the river by custom jet boat and within an hour find yourself seemingly in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by glaciers and pristine wilderness. The river holds resident and sea-run cutthroat, rainbow and bull trout.

Fall fishing begins as trout feast on salmon eggs. It’s not uncommon to land bull trout near ten pounds, with cutthroat and rainbow to six. Spring brings truly wild Lillooet steelhead, prime representatives of the species. Big, mean, chrome-bright chinook pour through from April to June.