BirdTrout
Jackson River, Virginia
15.4 mapped river miles, draining 345 square miles, in the Upper James basin watershed. 4 USGS gauges report water temperature on it, and this page reads all 4.
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.
Water temperature right now
Live from the USGS — every pill above is live, so the numbers you are reading are the latest continuous readings at each gauge. Provisional and unreviewed, as all real-time data is. If that fetch cannot happen — you are offline, or the USGS is down — the pills fall back to the last value we cached, 30 September 2026, 13:48 UTC.
The pills above go to USGS. These are this site's pages for the same gauges — a thirty-day chart, the monthly means, the record, and today's reading against the five-year normal for today: 02011400, 02011800, 02012500, 02012800.
Thermal classification
This is inferred, not measured. Virginia DWR 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.
Each gauge carries a July mean built from its own daily record — 3 Julys, 2019–2021, measured rather than modelled. A July mean is what decides which of the four bands a stretch of water belongs to, because July is when a trout river either holds or does not.
| Reach | July mean | Band | Groundwater |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Bacova RM 15.4–0.0 |
75.4 °F | warm | low |
|
Bl Gathright Dam Nr Hot Spgs RM -28.0–0.0 |
59.2 °F | cold-transitional | high |
|
Falling Spring RM -38.0–0.0 |
63.1 °F | cold-transitional | high |
|
Jackson Riv at Filtration Plant at Covington RM -46.1–0.0 |
67.4 °F | cool | moderate |
Every gauge sits at the bottom of its segment, so each number is the warm end and the water above it runs colder. ±1.99 °F on the fit.
Questions about this river
- Jackson River fishing report — what it reads right now
- When to fish the Jackson River — hatches, seasons and temperature
- How to get to the Jackson River — access, parking and public land
- Jackson River fishing regulations — season, size and gear by reach
- Is the Jackson River good for brook trout?
- Is the Jackson River good for brown trout?
- Is the Jackson River good for rainbow trout?
Virginia DWR classification
Virginia DWR classifies this water as Class II, Class V, and Class VI. 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.
Species Virginia DWR records in this water: brook trout, brown trout, rainbow trout. Recorded per classified reach, so it covers the classified water rather than the whole stream.
VDWR trout waters and stocking →
Fishable reaches
River miles are measured above the mouth, along the mapped mainstem. The reach breaks are the gauges, which is also how the temperature model divides the river.
| Reach | Miles | July mean | Access on it |
|---|---|---|---|
|
RM 15.4–0.0 down to Bacova |
43.4 | 75.4 °F | — |
|
RM -28.0–0.0 down to Bl Gathright Dam Nr Hot Spgs |
10.0 | 59.2 °F | — |
|
RM -38.0–0.0 down to Falling Spring |
8.1 | 63.1 °F | — |
|
RM -46.1–0.0 down to Jackson Riv at Filtration Plant at Covington |
30.4 | 67.4 °F | — |
0 mapped access sites on the mainstem: 0 walk-in, 0 boat or canoe launches.
USGS gauges
Every gauge on the mainstem, upstream first. Links go to the USGS monitoring-location page for the site.
-
Jackson River near Bacova
— 02011400 · RM 0.0
93 July days of record across 3 Julys (2019–2021) · 18 cfs at last read -
Jackson River Bl Gathright Dam Nr Hot Spgs
— 02011800 · RM 0.0
248 July days of record across 8 Julys (2019–2026) · 216 cfs at last read -
Jackson River at Falling Spring
— 02012500 · RM 0.0
217 July days of record across 7 Julys (2020–2026) -
Jackson Riv at Filtration Plant at Covington
— 02012800 · RM 0.0
226 July days of record across 8 Julys (2019–2026)
Public land on the river
1 unit of public or open-access land touches this river, 990,027 acres in total. Acreage is the whole unit, not the part beside the water.
| Unit | Owner | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| George Washington National Forest | U.S. Forest Service | 990,027 |
Species
Virginia DWR manages this water for brook trout, brown trout, rainbow trout. That is the state's designation rather than a survey: no fish survey or stocking record for this water is in the files this site reads.
Historical July mean
The measured record behind every temperature band on this page: the mean of the daily means for July, at each gauge, over the years USGS has one.
| Gauge | July mean | July range | Julys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bacova | 75.4 °F | 9.4 °F | 3 |
| Bl Gathright Dam Nr Hot Spgs | 59.2 °F | 6.6 °F | 8 |
| Falling Spring | 63.1 °F | 8.5 °F | 7 |
| Jackson Riv at Filtration Plant at Covington | 67.4 °F | 10.3 °F | 8 |
Hatches on this water
56 insects are recorded from the Virginia 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 42 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
13 named streams meet this one. Confluence miles are above the mouth; the longest twelve are listed.
- Dry Branch 14.8 mi · RM 15.4
- Stony Run 8.8 mi · RM 9.6
- Bolar Run 7.7 mi · RM 9.7
- Mill Run 4.8 mi · RM 6.2
- Morris Run 2.5 mi · RM 8.6
- Rocky Run 2.4 mi · RM 4.2
- Kelly Run 2.4 mi · RM 0.2
- Peak Run 2.3 mi · RM 9.6
- Barnetts Run 2.2 mi · RM 6.0
- Castle Run 2.2 mi · RM 0.0
- Cave Run 2.0 mi · RM 3.4
- Birch Run 1.3 mi · RM 1.6
Jackson River sits in HUC 8 02080201 and 02080202, the Upper James basin, and drains 345 square miles, Strahler order 6 at the mouth. 344 NHD reaches carry the name for 99.7 miles in total — more than the 15.4 miles of drawn mainstem, because NHD counts side channels and braids as their own reaches.
Other water nearby
The closest 6 rivers on this site, straight-line from the middle of this one — not drive time.