BirdTrout

Middle James-Buffalo Watershed, Virginia

1,107 miles of mapped stream across 2,023 square miles of drainage in Amherst, Nelson, Buckingham, Albemarle, Appomattox, Bedford, Fluvanna, Campbell counties, in 110 named streams. Virginia designates 120 of those miles as trout water, on 61 streams. The 2 mainstem gauges with a July record read between 68.3 and 70.1°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 02080203 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,107 mi
of mapped stream
2,645 NHD reaches
2,023 sq mi
drainage area
1,294,898 acres
68.3–70.1°F
July water temperature at the gauges
2 mainstem gauges, mean 69.2°F
98,294 ac
public land
7.6% of the basin · 12 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 1,107); 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 Middle James-Buffalo covers 2,023 square miles of Amherst, Nelson, Buckingham and Albemarle counties, and its trout water is concentrated hard against the Blue Ridge on the western edge rather than spread across the basin: 120 designated miles on 61 of 110 named streams, out of 428 mapped stream miles in all. The Pedlar River is the longest of them at 28.4 miles, designated Class III and VI; the South Fork Rockfish, Piney and Reed run 12 to 13 miles apiece at Class II and VI, and the Tye River 11.8 at Class VI. Public ground follows the same line — 80,449 acres of George Washington National Forest and 12,528 of Jefferson, against 3,013 acres of Horsepen Lake and 1,242 of Hardware River wildlife management areas out east. Two gauges hold a July record, reading 68.3 and 70.1°F.

Every named stream in the basin

All 110 of them, longest first. 46 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
Pedlar River 28.4 untyped — Class III, Class VI
South Fork Rockfish River 12.9 untyped — Class II, Class VI
Piney River 12.7 untyped — Class II
Reed Creek 12.5 untyped — Class II
Tye River 11.8 untyped — Class VI
James River 11.1 untyped — —
Otter Creek 10.4 untyped — Class III, Class VI
North Fork Tye River 8.8 untyped — Class II
Hunting Creek 8.6 untyped — Class II
Indian Creek 7.9 untyped — —
Buffalo River 7.9 untyped — —
South Fork Tye River 7.6 untyped — Class II
Little Piney River 7.6 untyped — Class II
North Fork 7.2 untyped — —
North Fork Buffalo River 7.0 untyped — Class II
Dancing Creek 6.6 untyped — Class VI
Mill Creek 6.6 untyped — Class II
Stony Creek 6.4 untyped — Class II
Meadow Creek 6.2 untyped — Class II
South Fork Piney River 6.0 untyped — Class II
Browns Creek 5.9 untyped — Class II
Taylor Creek 5.8 untyped — —
Battery Creek 5.5 untyped — Class VI
Rocky Run 5.4 untyped — Class II
Franklin Creek 5.4 untyped — —
Spruce Creek 5.4 untyped — Class II
Puppy Creek 4.9 untyped — —
Brown Mountain Creek 4.6 untyped — Class II
Pauls Creek 4.6 untyped — Class IV
Meriwether Creek 4.6 untyped — —
Mill Dam Creek 4.4 untyped — —
Cub Creek 4.4 untyped — Class II
Statons Creek 4.3 untyped — Class II
Peters Creek 4.2 untyped — Class IV
Rocky Row Run 4.2 untyped — Class VI
North Fork Piney River 4.2 untyped — Class I
Reids Creek 4.2 untyped — —
Cedar Creek 4.1 untyped — —
Love Lady Creek 4.0 untyped — —
South Fork Buffalo River 4.0 untyped — —
Williams Creek 3.8 untyped — —
Perry Creek 3.8 untyped — —
Long Branch 3.6 untyped — —
Little Irish Creek 3.5 untyped — Class III
Thrashers Creek 3.5 untyped — —
Davis Mill Creek 3.4 untyped — Class II
Enchanted Creek 3.4 untyped — Class II
Campbell Creek 3.3 untyped — Class II
Shoe Creek 3.3 untyped — Class I
Snow Creek 3.2 untyped — —
Swapping Camp Creek 3.2 untyped — —
Andersons Creek 3.2 untyped — —
Matts Creek 3.1 untyped — —
Coxs Creek 3.1 untyped — Class II
South Fork Thrashers Creek 3.0 untyped — —
Cove Creek 2.9 untyped — Class II
Cashaw Creek 2.8 untyped — Class VI
Billys Branch 2.5 untyped — —
Little Dancing Creek 2.5 untyped — —
Silver Creek 2.5 untyped — Class III
Goodwin Creek 2.5 untyped — —
Terrapin Creek 2.3 untyped — Class VI
Little Cedar Creek 2.3 untyped — —
Crabtree Creek 2.3 untyped — Class II
Rodes Creek 2.3 untyped — Class II
Muddy Branch 2.2 untyped — —
Harpers Creek 2.1 untyped — Class II
Georges Creek 2.1 untyped — Class II
Big Cove Branch 2.0 untyped — —
Bellamy Creek 2.0 untyped — —
White Rock Creek 2.0 untyped — Class II
Crawleys Creek 2.0 untyped — Class II
Maidenhead Branch 1.9 untyped — Class II
Durham Run 1.9 untyped — Class II
Louisa Spring Branch 1.9 untyped — Class I
Little Cove Creek 1.9 untyped — Class II
Little Stony Creek 1.9 untyped — Class II
Jacks Branch 1.8 untyped — —
Devils Branch 1.8 untyped — —
North Fork Thrashers Creek 1.8 untyped — Class III
Hayes Branch 1.8 untyped — —
Little Otter Creek 1.7 untyped — —
Wheelers Run 1.7 untyped — Class II
Little Maple Creek 1.7 untyped — —
Roberts Creek 1.6 untyped — Class III
Whiteoak Branch 1.6 untyped — —
Little Creek 1.6 untyped — —
Falling Rock Creek 1.5 untyped — Class III
Big Branch 1.5 untyped — Class II
King Creek 1.5 untyped — Class II
Nicholson Run 1.4 untyped — Class II
Skulking Branch 1.4 untyped — —
Elk Pond Branch 1.4 untyped — Class II
Greasy Spring Branch 1.4 untyped — Class II
Mallory Creek 1.4 untyped — —
Bluff Creek 1.3 untyped — Class II
Scott Branch 1.3 untyped — —
Rocky Branch 1.3 untyped — Class II
Nelson Creek 1.2 untyped — —
Wiggins Branch 1.2 untyped — Class II
Shady Mountain Creek 1.2 untyped — —
Pompey Creek 1.0 untyped — Class II
Cripple Creek 0.9 untyped — —
Childress Branch 0.8 untyped — —
Rockfish River 0.8 untyped — —
Tunnel Branch 0.5 untyped — —
Stonehouse Creek 0.4 untyped — —
Maury River 0.2 untyped — —
Lady Slipper Run 0.1 untyped — —
Hat Creek 0.1 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

98,294 acres in 12 units, which is 7.6% of the 1,294,898 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 93,073 95% 8
Virginia DWR 5,221 5% 3
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
Brown Trout
Salmo trutta
 55–63°F 45–70°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.