Alberta's Upper Bow River

The Bow in its extreme upper reaches--above Lake Louise--is very clear and cold, and pure enough to lack the nutrients essential to prolific aquatic insect life. And like nearly all high mountain streams, it is subject to severe scouring each spring during runoff. This prevents the growth of algae, which is a fundamental link in the food chain of a trout stream.

Consequently, its overall quality as a trout fishery in its extreme upper portions is only fair, though it carries a wide variety of fish--native bull and cutthroat trout, whitefish, brook trout, as well as rainbows, which often hybridize with the cutthroats.

Serious fly fishers prefer the river between Banff and the Seebe Dam. The Bow here holds a decent population of brown trout, including some real hogs, and provides very good fishing to those who know the river.

The Bow improves near the town of Banff where warm water and nutrients enter the river from both the town sewage treatment facilities and the Cave and Basin Hot Springs. The numbers of whitefish and brook trout increase, and brown trout make their appearance as the main attraction to anglers.

Serious fly fishers prefer the river between Banff and the Seebe Dam. The Bow here holds a decent population of brown trout, including some real hogs, and provides very good fishing to those who know the river. The river is not generous to those who spend little time on it. Fish numbers are not particularly high, and it's easy to cover a lot of water before finding them. I consider local advice a necessity on this portion of the river, for its idiosyncrasies will not be easily uncovered by a casual angler.

The Bow here is big, with lots of braided side channels. It gives both big-river and small-water anglers plenty of their favorite type of water. This part of the Bow stays open all winter thanks to numerous springs that enter the river directly and through some of the side-channels.

The river is naturally relatively stable in its upper reaches. Because its headwaters lie in Banff National Park where there is no logging done, runoff is heavy but short, and the river does not easily become dirty with summer rainstorms. However, this natural stability is compromised somewhat below Banff by the presence of power dams on the Cascade River and at the Spray Lakes Reservoir, which cause noticeable flow-fluctuations in the Bow.

There is plenty of public access for wading anglers to the Upper Bow River, but drift boats are still popular, and very useful.

Between Seebe and Cochrane, the river is interrupted by more power dams, which further increase the severity of flow fluctuations. Fish cannot adapt well to frequent extreme changes in water level, and consequently the river is not as good a fishery here as it is above Seebe or below the Bearspaw dam, which regulates these fluctuations before the river flows through Calgary.

As well, below Seebe the river flows through the Stoney Indian Reserve, and access to the Bow through the reserve is unreliable. So although whitefish, rainbow, and brown trout are present in the river and may be caught by various angling methods, the power dams and restricted access limit the fishing that takes place in this section of the Bow.

The best fishing in this area is in Chief Hector Lake, where the Stoneys collect a daily fee from anglers who wish to try for the huge rainbows that the lake produces. The waters of Bearspaw Reservoir also provide a quality rainbow trout fishery, though access is somewhat difficult. One problem with this fishery is the fact that the catch limit in the reservoir was left at five fish per day, even though the limit on the Bow proper here was reduced to zero until June 15, and two per day for the remainder of the summer.

So the upper river is at its best in the reach between the town of Banff and the Seebe dam--not coincidentally the section that has the best combination of stability and abundant aquatic life.