Enthusiasts

Try your skill at

COAL CREEK

Local kids love playing up Coal Creek. After the mine closed in 1958 the valley was deserted and imagination ruled. Mine ruins were pretend castles and fortresses. Steel from the old mining cars and equipment scattered in the valley was salvaged and sold for cash by the Snow Valley ski team, under

STONEFLY NYMPH

matching the live nymphs to the tied-fly used by fisherman.

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Heiko Socher’ s supervision. Grad parties and early Mogul Smokers were

Lures

rites of passage and burning skis paid homage to the Griz for a snowy winter.

CADDISFLY PUPA

Anglers of all ages still fish Coal Creek pools for rare, pure strain Westslope

FISH, FISHERS

cutthroat trout. Fish food is abundant, if not frightening for young eyes. Local kids universally call the bottom-dwelling macroinvertebrates that feed fish‘ scratchers’, but on closer observation they are stonefly, caddisfly and

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and FUN

mayfly invertebrate nymphs. Look for their shed-exoskeletons on the warm summer rocks; a parting gift before flying away as adults to mate, after maturing for three years in the rocky creek bed.

MAYFLY NYMPH

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If you want to fish

“ During summer holidays in the early 60’ s, my cousins and I would pack a cheese sandwich, fishing gear in a pack, and explore up Coal Creek for the day. At dusk our parents would collect us, honking and calling from our old Mercury. We had

Fernie & District Historical Society, FMP04792do

Fernie & District Historical Society, FMP05579

Coal Creek:

Fish downstream of the old MF & M Railway bridge( washed out in the 2021 flood). Up to two adults can fish if they accompany a disabled or youth angler under 16 who is actively fishing. Otherwise, angling is only permitted above the remains of this same bridge.

Mayfly Nymph- 1

Caddisfly Pupa- 3

Stonefly Nymph- 2

ANSWERS

“ We never went to Disneyland, but we had fun playing up Coal Creek”.

- Mary Menduk, long time Fernie resident, remembering her time playing up the valley in the 1940’ s.

Insect images: iStock photo Fly images: V. Croome

a true free-ranging childhood.”

AQUATIC CENTRE

- Pat Gilmar, Elk Valley resident whose family has been in the area since the first North-West Mounted Police arrived in the Crowsnest Pass / Elk

MONTANE TRAILHEAD

RIFLE RANGE

MATHESON FALLS TRAIL

Valley in the 1870s.

YOU ARE HERE 17.8 km

AMMONITE TRAIL