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Home › Waters › Tennessee › Watauga River
Tailwater · Southern Appalachians · Tennessee

Watauga River Fishing Guides

An east Tennessee tailwater below Wilbur Dam, cold and clear through Elizabethton, with wild brown trout and a float season set by the generation schedule.

A wide river below a ridge in full autumn colour in the Appalachians
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Watauga 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.

About the Watauga River

The Watauga comes out of the mountains of North Carolina, fills Watauga Lake, and emerges below Wilbur Dam as one of the best tailwater trout fisheries in the Southeast. The reach from the dam down through Elizabethton and on toward Boone Lake holds both stocked and wild brown trout, with the wild fish making up a meaningful share of the population, and it fishes year-round because the release keeps the temperature steady.

Guided days here are drift boat days, timed around the generation schedule at Wilbur Dam. On low water the river is wadeable in long stretches and fishes with midges, sulphurs and blue-winged olives; on generation it becomes a float, and the streamer and nymph fishing along the banks improves. The sulphur hatch from May into July is the highlight of the year, and October and November bring aggressive brown trout in spawning colors. The nearby South Holston is the more famous river, but locals will tell you the Watauga fishes better on a lot of days.

The Elizabethton gauge sits below the dam and reads the release. Low generation gives a few hundred cfs and comfortable wading; full generation pushes it well into the thousands and turns it into fast, deep boat water within an hour. The Tennessee Valley Authority publishes the schedule, and reading it is a required part of planning any day on this river.

Elizabethton and Johnson City are the base towns, with Bristol and Boone within an hour. There is enough guide capacity here that a trip can usually be booked on short notice outside of the fall.

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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.

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Posting to Watauga 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 Watauga River cfs

Now: 413 cfs, read 5:00 pm CDT, Sun Oct 18, 2026 (USGS 03486000, WATAUGA RIVER AT ELIZABETHTON, TN).

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

Access

Wilbur Dam: the top of the tailwater and the first access.
Smalling Road and Blevins Bend: upper river wade and launch access.
Hunter Bridge: a common put-in for guided floats.
Elizabethton town accesses: parks and bank fishing near the gauge.
Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park: public river frontage in town.
Bluff City and Boone Lake: the bottom of the tailwater.
Check the TVA generation schedule for Wilbur Dam before wading.

Seasons

Year-round tailwater; the temperature holds in every month.
March through May: blue-winged olives, then the start of the sulphur hatch.
May through July: peak sulphurs, the best dry fly weeks of the year.
October through February: brown trout spawning colors in fall, midge fishing and empty water in winter.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Watauga River?

As of Oct 18, 5:00 pm, the USGS gauge WATAUGA RIVER AT ELIZABETHTON, TN reads 413 cfs, the 30th percentile for this date. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Watauga River?

Anglers target Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout, Smallmouth Bass on the Watauga River in Tennessee.

Are there fishing guides on the Watauga River?

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

Where can you access the Watauga River?

Wilbur Dam: the top of the tailwater and the first access. Smalling Road and Blevins Bend: upper river wade and launch access. Hunter Bridge: a common put-in for guided floats. Elizabethton town accesses: parks and bank fishing near the gauge. Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park: public river frontage in town. Bluff City and Boone Lake: the bottom of the tailwater. Check the TVA generation schedule for Wilbur Dam before wading.

When is the best time to fish the Watauga River?

Year-round tailwater; the temperature holds in every month. March through May: blue-winged olives, then the start of the sulphur hatch. May through July: peak sulphurs, the best dry fly weeks of the year. October through February: brown trout spawning colors in fall, midge fishing and empty water in winter.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Watauga River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Tennessee agency site: https://www.tn.gov/twra/fishing-regs.html