In the midst of a historic heat wave in western Canada, we decided to head to the water in search of some world famous Columbia River Rainbows and some cold water to cool us down. Luckily, the fishing was as hot as the weather and we were able to get into many nice rainbow trout on dry flies. You can check the video out below. Don’t forget to like and subscribe!

As mentioned in the video, we decided to fish the Columbia on this day because it is drawn from the bottom of a reservoir, so the water was cold. There is also very healthy populations of rainbows as well as catch-and-keep regulations that allow harvest of rainbow trout. Considering these factors, we thought the impact from fishing this river during the heat wave would be negligible, compared to some of our smaller mountain streams whose water temperatures were much higher and have less heat tolerant species like Bull Trout.

As a guideline, water temps are generally to warm for C & R angling above 20 C for rainbows. For cutthroat and bull trout, this number is closer to 16 C. C & R angling in temps warmer than this will greatly increase the chance of fish mortality following release, especially if the fish is not handled properly. Keep this in mind if you see the mercury rising!

The official high on this day (June 27th) was 41 C… the previous record was 39.4 C. It’s only getting hotter and it seems as though new records will be coming! Pretty cool that we were able to enjoy some stellar fishing on what was, at that point, the hottest day ever recorded in Castlegar, BC.

Stay cool my fishy friends!