BirdTrout
Open the map
Wildcat Lake Dam, North Carolina
Wildcat Lake Dam on Wildcat Creek in North Carolina.
Open in BirdTrout36.1489, -81.8818 · Avery County · NID NC00281. Tap the map to open this water in the live app.
What the runs do here
Wildcat Creek carries no anadromous run on our corridor map, so this page makes no claim about salmon or steelhead at this dam. What it sits on is coldwater — resident trout water — and the section below says which classification says so.
The structure
- Owner
- Lees-McRae College, Inc. Private
- Purpose
- Recreation
- Completed
- 1920 · modified 2008
- Type
- Concrete
- Height
- 36 ft
- Storage
- 202 acre-ft
- Drainage
- 1 sq mi
- Condition
- Fair · High hazard potential
From the National Inventory of Dams (USACE). Hazard potential is a downstream-consequence classification, not a statement about the structure's condition.
The water above and below
- Elk River 0.61 mi from the dam · Catch and Release/Artificial Flies and Lures Only Trout Waters · wild (NCWRC)
- Shawneehaw Creek 0.87 mi from the dam · Wild Trout Waters · wild (NCWRC)
Coldwater designation is the state's own classification. A dam sits on one river and this list is every designated reach within a mile and a half of it, so a tributary mouth shows up here too.
Water right now
No USGS temperature gauge we read reports within 20 miles of this dam, so this page has no live number for it. That is a gap in the gauge network, not a judgement about the water.
Getting to it
- Lake Coffey 3.8 mi · walk in · Lake Coffey
Public access sites near the dam, straight-line distance. A dam itself is private property unless its owner says otherwise; these are the places the state lists as open.
Fly shops nearby
- Deep South Co Outfitters 6.1 mi · Elk Park · +18282605963
- Fly Shop 11.0 mi
- The Speckled Trout Outfitters 11.4 mi · Blowing Rock
- Footsloggers Outdoor & Travel Outfitters 11.4 mi · +1 828-295-4453
- Appalachian Outfitters 12.4 mi · Boone · +1-828-372-7003