Crawford Creek is a small West Kootenay stream that drains into Kootenay Lake. Its stocking record is the fullest picture of the water on hand: 36 releases logged between 1926 and 2020, an early rainbow trout program that gave way entirely to Kokanee enhancement from the 1950s on.
The water
The creek's mouth sits at 49.66566, -116.81283, the same coordinate the province uses for its own release records here. It runs stream order 4 (mid-range on a 1-to-6+ scale, where 1 is a headwater trickle and 6+ a full river), with a median channel width around 11 m, narrow to moderate for a Kootenay tributary, and a median gradient near 2.6%, gentle to moderate. No independent fish survey beyond the stocking ledger has turned up for this creek, so beyond the planted kokanee and the last of the historic rainbow trout, what else lives here is unconfirmed.
The fishing
Crawford Creek reads less like a fishing destination and more like a piece of Kootenay Lake's kokanee infrastructure. From 1926 to 1950, the province planted rainbow trout eyed eggs and fry here nearly every year, drawing on Gerrard, Cottonwood, Pennask, Pinantan and Beaver strains, a genuine put-grow program typical of the era. Kokanee releases began in 1931 and ran alongside the trout program through 1952, all Meadow Creek stock. Then the record goes quiet for half a century. When stocking resumed in 2005, it came back as kokanee only, egg plants and fry from the Meadow Creek spawning channel and the Hill Creek, Lussier River and Bridge broodstock lines, the same network that supports Kootenay Lake's kokanee run at Meadow Creek. The two largest single plants, 300,000 eyed eggs each in 2007 and 2008, and the most recent, 80,000 Hill Creek fry in May 2020, all point the same direction: this creek is spawning-habitat enhancement, not a catchable fishery. No guide, shop or trip report references Crawford Creek, and no rod-and-reel access point has been confirmed.
Not a keep-fish creek
Access and the rules
No named launch, trailhead, road or parking area has been confirmed for Crawford Creek, and nothing in the guide or shop record places a trip here. Until that gap is filled, use the coordinate above to locate the mouth on a map and treat the creek as a regulation-and-access check rather than a planned outing.
Before you fish
Stocking
The Province of BC, via the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC, has logged 36 releases into Crawford Creek since 1926, roughly 2.18 million fish in total: about 1.83 million kokanee and 350,000 rainbow trout. The rainbow trout program ended in 1950. Every release since has been kokanee, planted as eyed eggs straight into the gravel or as fry, most recently 80,000 Hill Creek fry in May 2020.
Crawford Creek — 2,182,738 fish stocked, 1926–2020
Rainbow Trout, Kokanee. Source: Province of BC — FIDQ / FISS Fish Releases via the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC.
| Year | Rainbow Trout | Kokanee |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | · | 80,000 |
| 2019 | · | 30,000 |
| 2018 | · | 100,000 |
| 2017 | · | 229,599 |
| 2016 | · | 30,030 |
| 2015 | · | 92,541 |
| 2008 | · | 300,000 |
| 2007 | · | 300,000 |
| 2005 | · | 200,000 |
| 1952 | · | 30,000 |
| 1951 | · | 30,000 |
| 1950 | 15,000 | 60,000 |
| 1949 | 15,000 | 80,000 |
| 1948 | · | 50,000 |
| 1947 | 20,000 | 50,000 |
| 1946 | 14,568 | 50,000 |
| 1944 | 10,000 | · |
| 1943 | 33,000 | · |
| 1942 | 15,000 | · |
| 1941 | 16,000 | · |
| 1940 | 25,000 | · |
| 1939 | 45,000 | · |
| 1938 | 20,000 | · |
| 1937 | 20,000 | · |
| 1936 | 12,000 | · |
| 1931 | · | 120,000 |
| 1929 | 20,000 | · |
| 1928 | 20,000 | · |
| 1927 | 20,000 | · |
| 1926 | 30,000 | · |
Conditions
- Navigability: small-stream water throughout (median channel width ~11.3 m, narrow to moderate; median gradient ~2.58%, gentle to moderate; peak mean-annual discharge ~3.83 m³/s, low flow). Nothing here suggests anything but a wade-and-walk creek.
