The Tuckaseegee River is the one of best stocked trout rivers in western North Carolina. It’s delayed harvest stretch between Sylva and Dillsboro gets stocked twice in March, April, May, October, and November. These stockings provide an abundance of trout to be caught from October to the end of May. After the first Saturday in June most of the fish are harvested by anglers since the delayed harvest designation turns into a hatchery supported designation. Anglers can can keep 7 trout a day while fishing hatchery supported waters.
The Tuckaseegee River can be very crowded with fishermen during the spring and fall months, but it’s a big enough river where wade fishermen and boaters can spread out. The river is wide and open for longer casts making it an enjoyable experience fishing from a drift boat or raft.
Our favorite methods for fishing this river is swinging wet flies during hatches, and stripping streamers off the banks during higher flows. Low water days can be a lot of fun in the Spring throwing dry flies when a compound hatch is going off. Drifting nymphs under an indicator can be super effective as well. A lot of anglers use indicators to dead drift bugs through runs so it can payoff to take the indicator off and switch up your presentation when the fish are being picky. Swinging unweighted pheasant tails and soft hackles are hard to beat. Most anglers tackle this river with a five weight rod since it’s versatile for throwing dries and nymphing. A seven weight with sinking line or a sink tip is great when both forks are being released to get those streamers down in the water column.
The Tuckaseegee River boosts high numbers of fish and quality ones at that. Anglers can get their trout slam here by catching a brown, rainbow, and brook trout in one outing.
It’s always a pleasure fishing the “Tuck” with clients because I get to share the memories and stories I made on this river when I was at Western Carolina University. I used to fish it every chance I could get when i could catch a break from my studies and competing on the track and field team. The river is always a peaceful place no matter how many people are fishing it and it’s a special place to trout fish here in the mountains of North Carolina.
