BirdTrout

Middle New River Watershed, Virginia

1,562 miles of mapped stream across 1,680 square miles of drainage in Giles, Bland, Tazewell, Craig, Pulaski counties, in 92 named streams. Virginia designates 70 of those miles as trout water, on 38 streams. The 4 mainstem gauges with a July record read between 65.8 and 69.6°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 05050002 in the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Every figure below adds up the river pages in this basin — same records, one basin at a time.

1,562 mi
of mapped stream
3,697 NHD reaches
1,680 sq mi
drainage area
1,075,114 acres
65.8–69.6°F
July water temperature at the gauges
4 mainstem gauges, mean 67.4°F
136,478 ac
public land
12.7% of the basin · 3 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 1,562); 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 New is a single-owner basin: all 136,478 acres of public ground in it are Jefferson National Forest, with no state wildlife management area at all — the only Virginia subbasin on this site of which that is true. It drains 1,680 square miles of Giles, Bland, Tazewell and Craig counties, 515 mapped stream miles across 92 named streams, and VDWR designates 70 of those miles as trout water on 38 of them. Wolf Creek is the longest at 47.7 miles, Class III; Sinking Creek runs 40.6 at Class V, Clear Fork 23.6 at Class III, Laurel Creek 22.6 at Class II and III, and the Bluestone River 19.0 at Class III. Five gauges hold a July record and read between 65.8 and 76.1°F. The designations are filed as both wild and stocked-holdover.

Every named stream in the basin

All 92 of them, longest first. 28 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
Wolf Creek 47.7 untyped — Class III
Sinking Creek 40.6 untyped — Class V
Little Walker Creek 32.0 untyped — —
Clear Fork 23.6 untyped — Class III
Laurel Creek 22.6 untyped — Class II, Class III
Bluestone River 19.0 untyped — Class III
Walker Creek 18.4 untyped — —
Stony Creek 17.2 untyped — Class III
New River 16.0 untyped — —
Hunting Camp Creek 14.3 untyped — Class III
Little Stony Creek 12.6 untyped — Class II
Nobusiness Creek 12.2 untyped — Class III
Wrights Valley Creek 10.1 untyped — —
Dismal Creek 9.7 untyped — Class III
Kimberling Creek 9.4 untyped — —
Dry Fork 9.2 untyped — Class II
Sugar Run 9.1 untyped — —
Brush Fork 8.0 untyped — —
Doe Creek 6.9 untyped — —
North Fork Stony Creek 6.7 untyped — Class II
Spur Branch 6.6 untyped — Class VI
Mill Creek 6.1 untyped — Class II
Little Creek 5.6 untyped — Class II
West Fork Cove Creek 5.4 untyped — Class II
Spruce Run 5.0 untyped — —
Ding Branch 4.9 untyped — Class III
Wilderness Creek 4.5 untyped — —
Laurel Branch 4.0 untyped — Class II
Broad Hollow Creek 3.8 untyped — —
White Rock Branch 3.8 untyped — Class II
Cox Branch 3.8 untyped — Class II
Big Spring Branch 3.5 untyped — —
East Fork Cove Creek 3.5 untyped — Class II
Whitleys Branch 3.4 untyped — —
Bear Spring Branch 3.4 untyped — Class II
Little Wolf Creek 3.4 untyped — —
Wabash Creek 3.2 untyped — Class II
Dry Branch 3.0 untyped — —
Standrock Branch 2.9 untyped — Class IV
Cecil Branch 2.9 untyped — —
Little Sugar Run 2.9 untyped — —
Church Branch 2.8 untyped — —
Pond Drain 2.8 untyped — Class II
Dismal Branch 2.8 untyped — Class III
Hiram Thompson Branch 2.7 untyped — —
Pearis Thompson Branch 2.6 untyped — Class IV
Kimballton Branch 2.6 untyped — —
Greenbrier Branch 2.4 untyped — —
Beaverpond Creek 2.4 untyped — —
Mill Branch 2.3 untyped — —
Wilderness Branch 2.2 untyped — —
Carter Branch 2.2 untyped — —
Fox Branch 2.2 untyped — —
Farrier Branch 2.1 untyped — —
Indianfield Branch 2.1 untyped — —
Mudley Branch 2.1 untyped — Class II
Mercy Branch 2.1 untyped — Class II
Gravel Hill Branch 1.9 untyped — —
Meredith Branch 1.9 untyped — Class II
Oneida Branch 1.9 untyped — Class II
Rush Branch 1.8 untyped — —
Dixon Branch 1.8 untyped — Class II
Hunters Branch 1.7 untyped — Class II
Mud Branch 1.6 untyped — —
Laurel Hollow Branch 1.5 untyped — —
Waterfall Branch 1.5 untyped — —
Bob King Branch 1.5 untyped — —
Deavers Branch 1.5 untyped — —
Lynn Hollow Branch 1.5 untyped — —
Stone Quarry Branch 1.4 untyped — —
Hemlock Branch 1.4 untyped — Class II
Maple Flats Branch 1.4 untyped — Class II
Roof Branch 1.4 untyped — —
Panther Den Branch 1.3 untyped — Class III
Poplar Spring Branch 1.3 untyped — —
Clear Spring Branch 1.3 untyped — —
Creed Branch 1.2 untyped — —
Given Branch 1.2 untyped — —
Harles Branch 1.2 untyped — —
Iron Spring Branch 1.2 untyped — —
Pine Swamp Branch 1.2 untyped — Class III
Burkes Garden Creek 1.2 untyped — —
Kidd Branch 1.1 untyped — —
Wagner Trace Branch 1.1 untyped — —
Cove Creek 1.0 untyped — Class II
Teels Branch 1.0 untyped — —
Polly Branch 0.9 untyped — —
Pigeon Branch 0.9 untyped — —
Hazel Branch 0.8 untyped — —
Perry Branch 0.8 untyped — —
Surrat Branch 0.6 untyped — —
Hemppatch Branch 0.6 untyped — —

Public land in the watershed

136,478 acres in 3 units, which is 12.7% of the 1,075,114 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 136,478 100% 3

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.