Black Creek meanders through farmland and forests as it heads to the Pacific Ocean on the east coast of Vancouver Island. It’s a very nice little stream. It flows into Georgia Straight just south of the Oyster River at the Miracle Beach Provincial Park and is well known for its coho salmon run in the fall, fly-fishing at the mouth in September and October will produce the best fishing. When I was a boy, they always talked about the giant steelhead trout that could be caught here, never hear much about this anymore.
Back in the Eighties, the creek was stocked regularly with cutthroat trout and now there is an abundance of them here. There are some good size rainbow trout that live in the creek, and they can be fun to fight on a fly rod. A winter run of steelhead come to the creek, but fishing is closed from December to May.
As you go through the entrance to the park, you cross over this creek on a wooden bridge. There is a great trail that wanders upstream from here, always see deer along with plenty of birds on this trail. If you continue along the road into the park, you will go past the campgrounds with their many campsites and come to a big parking lot with a nature center, this is one of two big parking lots. If you drive through the one with the nature center until you reach the end, you will see a trail that leads off into the forest, the trail is on the same side of the lot as the nature center.
This trail will take you along the side of Black Creek until it flows into the sea, this is a premier trail. There are some pretty nice views here as this is a very pretty creek and plenty of flowers, wildlife, and birds to see so bring your camera when you visit.
This year (2016) my family and l were hiking around the park in March and as we got to the beach we saw there was a herring spawn happening right at the mouth of the creek. The number of seabirds was incredible, they were here by the thousands, feeding on herring eggs. There were so many black brant geese here, l have never seen this north of Parksville, so it was a treat for us, that’s for sure.