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Virginia Trout Fishing Regulations 2026

9 VDWR coldwater habitat classes, 833 named waters — VDWR's own data, compiled here so you can search it.

Last updated 2026-09-24 · rebuilt nightly from VDWR data

721 of these waters have a full BirdTrout page with live water temperature, access and public land.

Fishing this week? The Virginia fishing report carries live water temperatures from every reporting gauge in the state, updated hourly, broken down by region.

Season dates

Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources publishes Virginia's trout season dates in the Virginia Fishing Regulations and does not publish them as data. We do not retype them here, because a season date typed from memory is the one error on a page like this that costs the reader a citation — read them at VDWR. What VDWR does publish as data is the designation each water carries, and that is the section below.

VDWR coldwater habitat classes

Every class VDWR uses, the waters in it, and what the class means. Counts are of named waters in our copy of the state's data.

Class I 31 named waters · 107 mi

Stream of outstanding natural beauty possessing wilderness or at least remote characteristics, an abundance of large deep pools, and excellent fish cover.

All 31 named waters

Class II 360 named waters · 1,001 mi

Stream contains a good wild trout population or the potential for one but is lacking in aesthetic quality, productivity, and/or in some structural characteristic.

All 360 named waters

Class III 169 named waters · 492 mi

Stream which contains a fair population of wild trout with carrying capacity depressed by natural factors or more commonly man-related landuse practices.

All 169 named waters

Class IV 72 named waters · 260 mi

Stream which contains an adequately reproducing wild trout population but has severely reduced summer flow characteristics.

All 72 named waters

Class V 33 named waters · 72 mi

Cold water habitat not suitable for wild trout but adequate for year-round hold-over of stocked trout. VDWR publishes no separate definition for classes V through VIII.

All 33 named waters

Class VI 115 named waters · 319 mi

Cold water habitat not suitable for wild trout but adequate for year-round hold-over of stocked trout. VDWR publishes no separate definition for classes V through VIII.

All 115 named waters

Class VII 8 named waters · 28 mi

Cold water habitat not suitable for wild trout but adequate for year-round hold-over of stocked trout. VDWR publishes no separate definition for classes V through VIII.

All 8 named waters

Class VIII 11 named waters · 16 mi

Cold water habitat not suitable for wild trout but adequate for year-round hold-over of stocked trout. VDWR publishes no separate definition for classes V through VIII.

All 11 named waters

Unclassified (OT) 2 named waters · 4 mi

Undocumented in VDWR's published class list. Carried through as the agency wrote it rather than guessed at.

All 2 named waters
  • Dicks Creek
  • Rush Fork

Designated waters

VDWR's designation code for each stocked water, which is the part of Virginia's regulation the agency publishes as data.

Put-And-Take PNT · 179 waters

Put-and-take. Stocked for harvest.

Stocked with brook, brown, rainbow.

All 155 waters

Special Regulation SR · 50 waters

Special regulation water — limits, tackle or season differ from the statewide rule.

Stocked with brook, brown, rainbow.

All 44 waters

Delayed Harvest DH · 16 waters

Delayed harvest. Catch-and-release under restricted tackle for part of the year.

Stocked with brook, brown, rainbow.

All 16 waters

Fly Fishing Only FF · 4 waters

Fee fishing water. A daily fee applies in addition to the licence.

Stocked with brook, brown, rainbow.

All 4 waters

Youth Only YTH · 3 waters

Youth-only water.

Stocked with brook, brown, rainbow.

All 3 waters
  • Ivy Creek(Peak's View Park)
  • South Fork Powell River(Dunford Park)
  • South River(Basic Park)

Special regulations

Water carrying a rule of its own — a closure, a gear restriction, or a named regulation — with the water it applies to.

Recent changes

Nothing has moved since the previous build. This page is rebuilt nightly against VDWR's data and this section fills in the night a season, a limit or a classification changes.

Coldwater and warmwater rules

Virginia's trout rules attach to designated stocked trout waters and to the wild trout streams VDWR classifies; other water runs on the statewide freshwater rules. The habitat class below is a statement about the stream, not about the limits.

Trout fishing near a town in Virginia

The same classification, asked the other way round: what VDWR classifies as trout water within forty miles of one place, ranked by how much of it is in range. 31 towns in Virginia have one — a town is on this list when the water near it is not the water near a bigger town down the road.

Licence and the official documents

We do not reproduce VDWR's licence pages or its digest. These are the originals.

Verify before you fish. This page is our best-effort compilation from Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources data, rebuilt nightly and current as of 2026-09-24. It is not legal advice and it is not the regulation. Emergency orders, in-season changes and the stretches an agency describes in words rather than in data will not all be here. Check the current rules at VDWR before fishing, and tell us what is wrong here — hello@birdtrout.com.
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