Old Baseline Road divides two rivers
On the Credit, where you stand decides what you may do. The 2026 Zone 16 summary and the Credit River Anglers Association's plain-language version agree on five pieces, top to bottom. Upstream of Old Baseline Road in Caledon, the river and its tributaries are artificial lures only, one single-pointed barbless hook, and zero brook, brown and rainbow trout. From Old Baseline Road up to Highway 9 near Orangeville is a sanctuary from January 1 to the Friday before the fourth Saturday in April and again from October 1 to December 31. From Britannia Road in Streetsville up to Old Baseline Road the river closes January 1 to the Friday before the fourth Saturday in April; the part of it between Britannia and Highway 407 then stays open to December 31 for rainbow trout, brown trout and Pacific salmon. From Highway 403 up to Britannia Road the sanctuary covers both January 1 to the spring opener and August 15 to December 31. From Highway 403 down to Lake Ontario, including Erindale Park, the river is open all year for those same species.
Two rules apply everywhere. Atlantic salmon, which the association stocks as part of their return to the river, are protected under the Endangered Species Act and it is illegal to fish for them; release one immediately if it takes your fly. And no fishing is allowed within 22.1 metres downstream of any dam, fishway or falls. The association asks anglers to release every wild steelhead, brown trout, brook trout and bass on top of the legal limits.
Belfountain, the Forks and Ken Whillans
The trout water most people picture is the West Credit at Belfountain Conservation Area, 819 Forks of the Credit Road in Caledon, where Credit Valley Conservation says you will find brook trout above the dam and brown trout below it, and asks anglers to stay at least 50 metres downstream of the dam. The park is a heritage site on the Niagara Escarpment, reached by a vehicle permit ($11.30 in 2026) or an annual parks pass; walk-in visitors are not allowed, parking opens with the season on April 25, and the Trimble side trail of the Bruce Trail follows the steep valley down to the Forks of the Credit.
Farther downstream at Ken Whillans Conservation Area in Caledon Village, the Credit runs along the west side of the property and CVC lists brown trout in the river. The park's ponds allow worms, but the streams do not, and CVC's voluntary guidelines ask for catch and release of trout there except for anglers under 17 or over 64.
The Streetsville ladder and the truck to Norval
Everything lake-run above Mississauga depends on a fishway at the Streetsville dam. The Ministry built it in 1980, on land owned by Kraft Canada, and the association's volunteers have run it since 1990. It has five small jumps of about 35 centimetres. In spring the ladder is worked daily from ice-out to late April; in summer it passes smallmouth and Atlantic salmon; in fall it is closed during the chinook runs so the Ministry can take eggs, then reopens for Atlantics, steelhead, brown trout and the odd coaster brook trout. Wild fish are loaded into an aerated tank and driven about 30 kilometres north past the Norval dam to the spawning water.
The association's hatchery targets 50,000 steelhead yearlings, 30,000 brown trout and 10,000 Atlantic salmon a year, with steelhead eggs taken at the ladder from late March through April and brown trout eggs in October and November. That schedule is also a fair guide to when the lake-run fish are in the lower river.
Erindale Park when the chinook come
The association's history of the fishery describes the salmon season in detail: chinook are fished from the piers and boats at the river mouth from late July to early October, the first big push usually comes between September 8 and 18, and fish hold in Erindale Park from mid-September to early November before they disappear. Like the steelhead, the salmon move on rain. Remember that the reach from Highway 403 up to Britannia Road closes on August 15, so fall salmon fishing is a Highway 403 to the lake affair. Zone 16 allows five Pacific salmon, combined with the trout limit, on a sport licence, and two rainbow or brown trout.
Streetsville's gauge in a dry September
The flow gauge on this page is at Streetsville, right at the ladder, so it reads what the lake fish see. ECCC data since 2006 put its monthly means at about 14.8 cubic metres per second in March, 17.4 in April, 11.2 in May, 5.4 in August, 4.9 in September and 5.9 in October. No local shop publishes a range for it, so the Ideal Flow of 140 to 490 cfs (about 4 to 14 cms) spans those fall and spring means. A fresh rise from the fall baseline is what pulls salmon and steelhead past Erindale. On September 24, 2026 the station read 2.8 cms, about 100 cfs, well under the September mean.