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Home › Waters › Virginia › Clinch River
River · Southwest Virginia · Virginia

Clinch River Fishing Guides

A free-flowing southwest Virginia river with the richest freshwater mussel fauna in North America, floated for smallmouth bass, rock bass and a real muskellunge population.

A small waterfall stepping through mossy boulders in an eastern hardwood forest

Map of the Clinch River

9 numbered points: 8 access points, 1 USGS gauge. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Sep 25, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (8)
  • USGS gauge (1)
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Points are curated from OpenStreetMap and state agency sources; confirm access and hours before you go.

Print it. Bag it. Bring it.Phones die, screens crack, and most of this water has no signal. Print this map, fold it into a zip-top bag or dry bag with your license, and you have a backup your electronics can’t give you. Every marker is numbered so you can say exactly where you are.

Open the printable map
All 9 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1Blackford Bridge Access
VA DWR - Russell Co. - hand launch		Access / boat ramp36.99657, -81.94378Uppermost mapped access, Russell County. Hand launch.
2Puckett's Hole Access
VA DWR - Russell Co. - hand launch		Access / boat ramp36.96997, -82.01379Hand launch, Russell County.
3Nash's Ford Access
VA DWR - Russell Co. - hand launch		Access / boat ramp36.96702, -82.07915Hand launch above Cleveland.
4Clinch River at Cleveland
USGS 03524000 - real-time stage and flow		USGS gauge36.94483, -82.15486Roster gauge for this water. This river is famously mussel-rich; read the gauge before wading.
5Carterton Access
VA DWR - Russell Co. - hand launch		Access / boat ramp36.91521, -82.22150Hand launch below the Cleveland gauge.
6St Paul Access
VA DWR - Wise Co. - hand launch		Access / boat ramp36.90307, -82.30759Hand launch at St Paul, Wise County.
7Dungannon Access
VA DWR - Scott Co. - hand launch		Access / boat ramp36.83107, -82.46221Hand launch at Dungannon, Scott County.
8Clinch Port Access
VA DWR - Scott Co. - hand launch		Access / boat ramp36.67591, -82.74246Hand launch at Clinchport.
9State Line Access
VA DWR - Scott Co. - hand launch		Access / boat ramp36.59921, -82.88019Lowest Virginia access, at the Tennessee line above Norris Lake.

Guides on the Clinch River

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

Order on this page: premium and outfitter plans first (labelled Premium placement), then claimed free profiles, then unclaimed — one published price, no bidding for position. How placement works

About the Clinch River

The Clinch River rises in Tazewell County in southwest Virginia and runs southwest through Richlands, Cleveland and St. Paul before crossing into Tennessee. The USGS gauge at Cleveland reads the Virginia reach that guides actually float and reports discharge, stage and a current water temperature series, which makes it one of the more useful gauges in the state for planning a smallmouth trip. Above the Tennessee line the Clinch is entirely free-flowing, and that is the key fact about it: no dam steadies the flow, so the river rises and falls with rain across a long, narrow Appalachian valley.

The Clinch is a river of national significance for reasons beyond fishing. It carries the most diverse freshwater mussel and fish fauna of any river in North America, with dozens of endemic and imperiled species, and much of the valley is under active conservation management as a result. For anglers, that biological richness translates into a productive warmwater river. Smallmouth bass are the primary target, holding on the ledges and boulder gardens through the Cleveland and St. Paul reaches, with rock bass thick enough to keep a light rod busy and redbreast sunfish through the shallows. Muskellunge are the trophy fish here, a genuine and well-established population that draws specialists in fall and winter, and walleye and catfish fill out the deeper water.

Guided work is float work. Outfitters in St. Paul, Cleveland and the Clinch River Valley run raft and drift-boat day trips through the marked river access chain that the state and local towns have built out over the past decade, and the Clinch River State Park, established as a linear park along the corridor, has improved public access considerably. Wade fishing is possible at low flow but the productive water is generally reached by boat.

Read the Cleveland gauge and the temperature both. Smallmouth fishing turns on from late April as water warms into the sixties and holds through October, with the best floats in May, June, September and October. High water after rain shuts it down for a day or two and then produces well as it drops and clears. Virginia licenses are required and the regulations linked below carry current limits, including the muskellunge provisions.

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Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

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We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Posting to Clinch River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Clinch River cfs

Now: 154 cfs, read 7:45 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 03524000, CLINCH RIVER AT CLEVELAND, VA).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Cleveland river access at the USGS gauge - the flow and temperature reference and a standard put-in.
St. Paul river access - the best-known take-out and the hub of the local float trade.
Clinch River State Park accesses - the linear park's chain of public launches along the corridor.
Dungannon access - lower-river put-in toward the Tennessee line.
Richlands and Cedar Bluff accesses - upper-river launches on smaller water.
Nash Ford and Blackford accesses - middle-river landings between Cleveland and St. Paul.
Guest River confluence area - tributary mouth access and a cold-water inflow.

Seasons

Spring: high and stained through March and early April, then the best smallmouth fishing of the year begins as water warms in May.
Summer: low, clear and technical; float early, fish the shade and expect long slow pools between ledges.
Fall: September and October bring steady flow and strong smallmouth fishing, with muskellunge picking up as water cools.
Winter: high and cold more often than not, but the prime muskellunge window for anglers who target them.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Clinch River?

As of Nov 2, 7:45 am, the USGS gauge CLINCH RIVER AT CLEVELAND, VA reads 154 cfs, with water temperature 56.3 F. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Clinch River?

Anglers target Channel Catfish, Flathead Catfish, Muskellunge, Redbreast Sunfish, Rock Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Spotted Bass, Walleye on the Clinch River in Virginia.

Are there fishing guides on the Clinch River?

GuidedFloats lists 1 guide and outfitters on the Clinch River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Clinch River?

Cleveland river access at the USGS gauge - the flow and temperature reference and a standard put-in. St. Paul river access - the best-known take-out and the hub of the local float trade. Clinch River State Park accesses - the linear park's chain of public launches along the corridor. Dungannon access - lower-river put-in toward the Tennessee line. Richlands and Cedar Bluff accesses - upper-river launches on smaller water. Nash Ford and Blackford accesses - middle-river landings between Cleveland and St. Paul. Guest River confluence area - tributary mouth access and a cold-water inflow.

When is the best time to fish the Clinch River?

Spring: high and stained through March and early April, then the best smallmouth fishing of the year begins as water warms in May. Summer: low, clear and technical; float early, fish the shade and expect long slow pools between ledges. Fall: September and October bring steady flow and strong smallmouth fishing, with muskellunge picking up as water cools. Winter: high and cold more often than not, but the prime muskellunge window for anglers who target them.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Clinch River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Virginia agency site: https://dwr.virginia.gov/fishing/regulations/