BirdTrout
Jacob Fork, North Carolina
18.2 mapped river miles, draining 44 square miles, in the Catawba basin watershed. No gauge stands in it; the nearest is 15.1 miles away, and what this page knows about its temperature is North Carolina WRC's classification of the water itself.
50°F and colder is cold, through cold-transitional and cool, to warm above 70°F — the same four bands, breaking at 58, 64 and 70°F, that the app paints. Grey is water nobody has measured.
The nearest live reading
The nearest gauge is 15.1 miles away, at Catawba River — not a reading of this water, but of what the region is doing today.
Thermal classification
This is inferred, not measured. North Carolina WRC does not publish a temperature classification for this water. What it publishes is a management tier — whether the trout in it are wild, hold over through summer, or are stocked and fished out — and the bands below are read off that tier, because a stream that sustains wild trout is a cold stream and one that does not hold fish past July is not. It is the agency's judgement of the fishery translated into the four bands this site paints everywhere else; it is not a thermometer, and where the two disagree the thermometer is right.
North Carolina WRC's classification of this water, reach by reach. A class, not a temperature — no July mean, because none was measured here.
| Reach | Typed miles | Band | North Carolina WRC type |
|---|---|---|---|
| RM 18.2–14.2 | 4.0 | cold | — |
| RM 14.2–10.4 | 3.8 | cold-transitional | — |
North Carolina WRC has classified 7.8 of the 18.2 miles NHD carries for this stream — 43% of it. The typed water splits 4.0 mi cold, 3.8 mi cold-transitional. The untyped reaches are not warm water — they are water North Carolina WRC's inventory does not reach, and the mile ranges above span only the reaches it does.
Named stretches
Anglers name parts of this river. These are the names two or more independent sources use; each page says which sources, because a nickname is the one thing on this site that is not a measurement.
- Jacob Fork Delayed Harvest — The delayed-harvest water on Jacob Fork, which NCWRC draws as Shinny Creek to the lower South Mountains State Park boundary. Stocked heavily and fished hard through the cold months, when nothing may be kept; the geometry here is the agency's own, so the line on the map is the line in the rule.
Questions about this river
- Jacob Fork fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish Jacob Fork — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to Jacob Fork — access, parking and public land
- Jacob Fork fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
- Is Jacob Fork good for rainbow trout?
North Carolina WRC classification
North Carolina WRC classifies this water as Delayed Harvest Trout Waters and Wild Trout Waters. More than one class appears because the classification changes along the river. The thermal bar above shows where. The management tier on those reaches is stocked holdover, wild. This is a designation of the fishery, not the season and creel rules — those change yearly and live with the agency.
NCWRC public mountain trout waters →
Public land on the river
1 unit of public or open-access land touches this river, 21,326 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| South Mountains State Park | state park agency | 21,326 |
Species
NC DEQ recorded rainbow trout here in a fish community survey, between 1997 and 1999, at one sampling site on this water.
Hatches on this water
52 insects are recorded from the North Carolina mountains, which is the region this river sits in. That is a claim about the region and not a survey of this stream: nobody has recorded which of them has been caught here. Open the river in the app and the hatch panel will narrow it to the ones whose temperature window today's reading is inside.
| Insect | Peak | Water | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Little Black Stonefly Allocapnia / Capnia spp. |
January–April | 34–46°F | #16–18 |
| Little Brown Stonefly Taeniopteryx / Strophopteryx spp. |
February–April | 38–50°F | #12–16 |
| Blue-Winged Olive Baetis spp. |
March–May and September–November | 38–58°F | #16–22 |
| Quill Gordon Epeorus pleuralis |
March–April | 42–52°F | #12–14 |
| Blackfly Simulium spp. |
April–June | 40–65°F | #18–22 |
| Blue Quill Paraleptophlebia adoptiva |
April–May | 44–56°F | #16–18 |
| Cranefly Tipula spp. |
April–June and September–October | 40–65°F | #6–10 |
| Grannom Brachycentrus spp. |
April–May | 48–58°F | #14–16 |
| Green Rock Worm / Green Weenie Rhyacophila spp. |
April–June and September–October | 45–68°F | #10–14 |
| Hendrickson Ephemerella subvaria |
April–May | 45–58°F | #12–14 |
| Little Black Caddis Chimarra atterima |
April–May | 46–58°F | #16–20 |
| Alderfly Sialis spp. |
May–June | 52–66°F | #10–14 |
| Caterpillar Lepidoptera larvae |
May–September | 55–75°F | #8–14 |
| Crayfish Orconectes spp. |
May–October | 55–78°F | #4–8 |
And 38 more — the year-round records, mostly: midges, scuds and sculpins, which are in the water every day and are therefore never the news.
Tributaries and watershed
8 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Rock Creek 9.1 mi · RM 0.3
- Camp Creek 7.9 mi · RM 3.9
- White Oak Creek 5.5 mi · RM 9.2
- Little River 5.2 mi · RM 10.4
- Nettle Branch 4.5 mi · RM 15.9
- Shinny Creek 3.5 mi · RM 14.2
- Seeley Creek 2.4 mi · RM 8.8
- Queens Creek 1.8 mi · RM 8.6
Jacob Fork sits in HUC 8 03050101 and 03050102, the Catawba basin, and drains 44 square miles, Strahler order 3 at the mouth. 19 NHD reaches carry the name for 18.2 miles in total.
Other water nearby
The closest 6 rivers on this site, straight-line from the middle of this one — not drive time.