BirdTrout

Maury River Watershed, Virginia

1,514 miles of mapped stream across 838 square miles of drainage in Rockbridge, Augusta, Bath counties, in 118 named streams. Virginia designates 106 of those miles as trout water, on 49 streams. The 1 mainstem gauge with a July record read 69.4°F in July.

Open in BirdTrout
Map key
Public land — where the bank is open to walk and fish
USGS gauge — live water temperature
Water temperature — the colour of every stream in the basin

50°F and colder is cold, through cold-transitional and cool, to warm above 70°F — the same four bands the app paints. On this map the colour is Virginia DWR's own classification of the stream, not a measurement, except at the gauge dots, which read live. Grey is water Virginia DWR has not typed.

The watershed in numbers

HUC8 02080202 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,514 mi
of mapped stream
3,174 NHD reaches
838 sq mi
drainage area
536,420 acres
69.4°F
July water temperature at the gauges
1 mainstem gauge, mean 69.4°F
183,651 ac
public land
34.2% of the basin · 11 units

Cold, cool and warm water

Virginia publishes stockability classes and a wild-or-stocked tier for its trout water, and no thermal class this page can read. It covers 0% of this basin's stream miles (0.0 of 1,514); the rest is untyped and is drawn grey on the map above.

Virginia publishes no thermal classification of its streams that we could read, so this page has no cold/cool/warm breakdown. The live map colours Virginia water from an air-temperature model at the moment you open it; the designations below are VDWR's own and are the harder fact.

What makes this watershed distinctive

The Maury drains 838 square miles off the Alleghenies into the James at Glasgow, and the shape of it is two long pasture-country forks — the Calfpasture at 32.1 miles and the Little Calfpasture at 24.0, Class IV — joining above the Maury's own 22.9 mapped miles. VDWR designates 106 of the basin's 534 stream miles as trout water on 49 of its 118 named streams, filed as both wild and stocked-holdover. Public ground is substantial for a basin this size: 183,651 acres, 147,687 of it George Washington National Forest, with 30,013 acres of the Goshen and Little North Mountain Wildlife Management Area — the largest single WMA holding on any Virginia page here — and Short Hills adding 2,081. Mill Creek runs 22.4 miles at Class VI and Buffalo Creek 17.5 at Class V. One gauge holds a July record, at 69.4°F.

Every named stream in the basin

All 118 of them, longest first. 47 have a page of their own and are linked; the rest are in the app. The class column is Virginia DWR's designation of that stream. "Now" is the live USGS reading where a gauge stands in that stream.

Stream Miles Class Now Designation
Calfpasture River 32.1 untyped — —
Little Calfpasture River 24.0 untyped — Class IV
Maury River 22.9 untyped — —
Mill Creek 22.4 untyped — Class VI
Buffalo Creek 17.5 untyped — Class V
South River 15.1 untyped — —
Irish Creek 14.3 untyped — Class III
Brattons Run 12.2 untyped — Class II
Hays Creek 12.0 untyped — —
Poague Run 10.5 untyped — —
South Buffalo Creek 10.1 untyped — Class II
Saint Marys River 9.4 untyped — Class I, Class II
Moffatts Creek 8.9 untyped — —
Broad Creek 7.7 untyped — —
North Buffalo Creek 7.6 untyped — Class VI
Smith Creek 6.7 untyped — Class IV
Hamilton Branch 6.5 untyped — —
Little Mill Creek 6.3 untyped — Class II
Cove Run 6.3 untyped — —
Spy Run 5.8 untyped — Class II
Clayton Mill Creek 5.4 untyped — Class II
Guys Run 5.4 untyped — Class II
Otts Creek 5.4 untyped — Class III
Big Marys Creek 5.4 untyped — Class II
Moores Creek 5.4 untyped — —
Fridley Branch 5.2 untyped — —
Moore Creek 5.2 untyped — —
Jerkemtight Branch 4.8 untyped — Class IV
Alum Creek 4.8 untyped — Class II
Cabin Creek 4.7 untyped — —
Belle Cove Branch 4.7 untyped — Class IV
Goshen Branch 4.5 untyped — —
Charlie Lick Branch 4.3 untyped — —
Gochenour Branch 4.3 untyped — Class II
Taylor Branch 4.2 untyped — —
White Rock Branch 4.0 untyped — —
Union Creek 4.0 untyped — —
Daddy Run 3.9 untyped — —
Hughart Run 3.9 untyped — —
Tizzle Branch 3.8 untyped — —
West Dry Branch 3.8 untyped — —
Nettle Creek 3.8 untyped — Class II
Laurel Branch 3.7 untyped — —
Poor Creek 3.6 untyped — —
Pedlar Gap Run 3.6 untyped — Class III
Davidson Run 3.6 untyped — Class II
Allen Creek 3.5 untyped — —
Whitesides Run 3.5 untyped — —
Montgomery Run 3.4 untyped — —
Noels Run 3.4 untyped — Class II
Little Marys Creek 3.3 untyped — Class II
Pisgah Branch 3.2 untyped — —
Lowry Run 3.2 untyped — Class III
Daniel Run 3.1 untyped — —
Corbett Branch 3.0 untyped — —
Byrd Spring Creek 3.0 untyped — —
Battle Run 3.0 untyped — —
Still Run 2.9 untyped — Class IV
Stony Lick 2.9 untyped — —
Liptrap Run 2.9 untyped — —
Left Fork 2.8 untyped — —
South Fork White Rock Branch 2.8 untyped — —
Goose Creek 2.8 untyped — —
Lick Run 2.8 untyped — —
Cold Sulphur Springs Branch 2.7 untyped — —
Elliott Springs Run 2.7 untyped — —
Laurel Run 2.7 untyped — Class I
Poplar Cove Run 2.7 untyped — Class III
Ferrol Creek 2.6 untyped — Class IV
Davidson Creek 2.6 untyped — —
Marl Creek 2.6 untyped — —
Possum Run 2.6 untyped — —
Jeff Run 2.5 untyped — —
Indian Gap Run 2.5 untyped — Class IV
Spring Branch 2.5 untyped — —
Archer Run 2.4 untyped — —
Marlbrook Creek 2.4 untyped — Class V
Bull Run 2.4 untyped — —
Phillips Lick 2.3 untyped — —
Piney Branch 2.3 untyped — Class II
Toma Run 2.3 untyped — —
Falling Run 2.3 untyped — —
Bennetts Run 2.3 untyped — Class II
Trout Branch 2.2 untyped — Class IV
Glover Run 2.2 untyped — —
Jerrys Run 2.1 untyped — Class IV
Rock Lick 2.1 untyped — —
Body Lick Branch 2.0 untyped — —
Big Bend Creek 2.0 untyped — Class IV
South Fork Bennetts Run 2.0 untyped — Class IV
Falling Spring Run 2.0 untyped — —
Black Run 1.9 untyped — —
Grassy Run 1.9 untyped — —
Kelso Spring Branch 1.9 untyped — Class II
Nettle Spring Branch 1.9 untyped — Class II
North Fork Bennetts Run 1.9 untyped — Class IV
Staples Run 1.8 untyped — —
Chinquapin Branch 1.8 untyped — —
North Fork Spy Run 1.8 untyped — Class II
Bear Branch 1.8 untyped — Class II
Elephant Creek 1.7 untyped — —
Glendye Branch 1.7 untyped — —
Mill Branch 1.7 untyped — —
Rock Branch 1.7 untyped — Class IV
Chimney Branch 1.6 untyped — Class II
Sugartree Branch 1.6 untyped — Class II
Hogback Creek 1.6 untyped — Class II
South Fork Chalk Run 1.6 untyped — —
Fall Branch 1.5 untyped — —
Mine Bank Creek 1.5 untyped — Class II
Craig Creek 1.5 untyped — —
Als Run 1.4 untyped — Class IV
Wigwam Creek 1.4 untyped — Class II
McGee Run 1.2 untyped — —
Rubush Run 1.0 untyped — —
Mud Lick 0.9 untyped — —
Colliers Creek 0.6 untyped — —
Walker Creek 0.3 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

183,651 acres in 11 units, which is 34.2% of the 536,420 acres the basin covers. Private inholdings carried in the same source file are excluded, here and on the map.

Managing agency Acres Share Units
US Forest Service 151,031 82% 6
Virginia DWR 32,620 18% 3
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation 0 0% 1
Virginia Department of Forestry 0 0% 1

The biggest named blocks of it, each with its own page — the streams on that ground, what is open to hunt on it, and where the access sites are.

Species present

Recorded by VDWR on the reaches it has classified, per stream. The temperature ranges are our own species table and are the same numbers the app's picker uses.

Species Best water Tolerates Evidence
Brook Trout
Salvelinus fontinalis
 50–60°F 42–65°F surveyed
Rainbow Trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss
 55–64°F 44–70°F surveyed

Best time to fish

The hatch calendar for the Virginia mountains, which is the region this basin's centre falls in — the same regions the app's hatch panel uses. It is a regional record, not a survey of this watershed: nobody has counted insects basin by basin. Year-round records (midges, scuds, sculpins) are left out; they are true every month and they are not what a calendar is for.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Nothing seasonal on the water.

56 insects are recorded from the Virginia mountains. Each links to its own page, with the flies that imitate it.

Neighbouring watersheds

The subbasins that share a boundary with this one and carry coldwater streams.