Keen Creek is a tributary creek flowing into Kaslo River. Recorded fish: Westslope cutthroat, bull trout, rainbow, cutthroat, dolly varden, kokanee.
The water
It flows into Kaslo River within the Kootenay Lake watershed (Kootenay Lake → Kootenay River). It runs stream order 5 (well down the network, toward river scale; the scale runs from 1 for a headwater trickle to 6+ for a river) and roughly 31 km. Westslope Cutthroat Trout, Bull Trout, Rainbow Trout, cutthroat, dolly varden, Kokanee, recorded here in provincial fish-inventory data (42 records). Named tributaries in the index: Deer Creek, Klawala Creek, Kyawats Creek, Montezuma Creek, Ben Hur Creek, Blacktail Creek, Virgil Creek, Joker Creek, Carlyle Creek, Sturgis Creek, Sawtooth Creek, Desmond Creek, Nutla Creek, Nashton Creek, Briggs Creek, Glen Creek.
The fishing
As a small stream, a tributary of Kaslo River, Keen Creek fishes the way creeks of its size do: short drifts with a buoyant attractor dry over a light dropper, working the pocket water and the heads of pools. Match the fly box to the season and confirm against a current local report.
Conditions
- Navigability: not a casual float: whitewater or canyon evidence on this water; treat as wade unless a guide says otherwise (median channel width ~12.3 m, wide; median gradient ~2.44%, moderate; peak mean-annual discharge ~5.996 m³/s, moderate flow; canyon-confined sections with ~130 m walls (DEM)).
Access & the rules
Access for Keen Creek, meaning the roads in, put-ins and any walk-in or seasonal limits, is worth confirming locally before you commit a day. The drainage map shows how the water sits in its valley.
