Along the Escarpment- Saving NC's Lowest Elevation Native Trout

Fisheries biologists in North Carolina are broken out into districts based on certain counties across the state. District 7, which encompasses the counties of Wilkes, Alleghany, Surry, Ashe, and Watauga, is the most peculiar of them all. These counties have robust native and wild trout populations, but incredibly limited public angling access. Unlike the majority of other portions of western NC, these counties have little to no National Forest access. The lower elevations, smaller stream flows, and increased development have left many of these streams highly susceptible to decline.

For the focus of today’s post and the large-scale, volunteer-led data collection project, we will focus specifically on Wilkes County and the Stone Mountain State Park area. Here, we have some of our state’s lowest-elevation and genetically purest southern strain brook trout. Most of our streams within the state park source on federal land near the Blue Ridge Parkway around 3,000 ft elevation. These creeks flow into the East Prong Roaring River around 1,200–1,600 ft elevation, and some hold brook trout populations that low.

Stone Mountain State Park is a huge asset from both a recreational aspect, along with providing significant cultural and historic value. The park provides one of the closest angling opportunities for residents in most major cities across NC. At 14,000 acres, the park creates a continuous corridor of protected land, along with 4,000 acres of Thurmond Chatham Gamelands and another 7,000 acres in Doughton Park. The Blue Ridge Parkway even runs parallel along the northern side of the park in Alleghany County.

These factors make Stone Mountain State Park one of the most unique brook trout fisheries in the Southeast. Unfortunately, it has also changed rapidly over the past two decades, and while some of our streams still hold healthy populations, many have declined drastically. Below are some examples of what’s occurred that has sparked the urgency for this large-scale temperature monitoring project.

2015

In 2015, biologists discovered a quality brook trout population just outside the park boundary had been extirpated after clear-cutting and development along this low-elevation stream.

2017

A well-regarded Roaring River tributary that contained wild brown and native brook trout became extirpated for unknown reasons. Most concerning, the wild brown trout, which are typically much more resilient, also disappeared at the same time as the native brook trout.

2024

One of the genetically purest southern strain brook trout streams in NC was visited for the first time in over a decade, and the population had declined significantly and been reduced to an unnamed tributary.

2025

Approval was granted to translocate from a source population and restore native brook trout in the Roaring River tributary that was extirpated in 2017. Biologists identified that the population had declined in the source candidate stream, and restoration efforts were halted until additional data could be obtained for decision-making.

Despite these unfortunate series of events, some brook trout populations in the area are still healthy and maintain high densities.

Why this project is important

Comprehensive data

NC Wildlife Resources Commission biologists are heavily constrained by a lack of resources and bandwidth. The stream temperature and other health metric data they have for these small native brook trout streams is few and far between. To collect data, volunteers must hike into these remote streams to coordinates across various elevations, hammer down rebar, apply a temp logger, and set up the Bluetooth connection. Later in the year, volunteers must hike back to the location to manually download and export the Bluetooth data.

Currently, they only have stream temperature data (current and historic) on one stream within the park boundary and three additional streams along the escarpment outside the state park. As part of this project, we will be collecting data across 35 different loggers on 15+ streams and unnamed tributaries. Additionally, we plan to monitor these stream metrics for at least the next decade. The time NCWRC biologists free up instead of monitoring these loggers can be utilized to focus on electroshocking and monitoring populations.

Project scalability

Over time, we plan to continue expanding the number of creeks and the range we are monitoring, hence the large number of organizations and volunteers involved with this project. We also have plans to collect additional data points over time, such as pH content, stream flow data, and more. This will be added to a comprehensive database to help establish better baselines and analytics around small native trout stream data. Additionally, we are sending this data off as part of a larger analysis being conducted by the University of Montana.

Data in action

This data will be used both near and long term by biologists to make informed decisions around which streams to restore in the near term, broader management plans for native brook trout, which streams aren’t ideal candidates to hold brook trout, and to identify which metrics are critical in determining why some streams within the same range remain healthy while others decline. Without the necessary data, resources can be wasted by making uninformed decisions that aren’t data-driven.

This project is so labor intensive, requiring annual hikes into these remote creeks, that we have been fortunate to partner with a number of organizations. Each organization has taken ownership of one or more creeks and manages the installation and temperature data collection for them. See below for all of the phenomenal organizations that have made this project possible:

• Traphill Angling Society

• Native Fish Coalition

• NC Brook Trout Association

• Blue Ridge Trout Unlimited

• Stone Mountain Trout Unlimited

• North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission

• Many more individuals

Interested in getting involved with this project or other Southern Appalachian brook trout-related work? See below for the volunteer dates and descriptions. If interested in attending any of the volunteer days or future events, please reach out to me.

District 7 Temp Project Volunteer Dates

Date: June 1st

Time: 8:00

Location: Stone Mountain State Park

Difficulty: Difficult

Hike length estimate: 16 miles

Date: June 6th

Time: 8:00

Location: Deep Gap, NC

Difficulty: Moderate

Hike length estimate: 6 miles

Date: June 21st

Time: 7:30

Location: Millers Creek, NC

Difficulty: Moderate

Hike length estimate: 6.5 miles

2026 Brook Trout Bash

Saturday, September 26th in Wilkes County.

Event to raise awareness about native brook trout and bring together experts and enthusiasts from across the country.

The event will feature presentations from brook trout and conservation experts, local fly tiers, vendors, camping, and fishing.

Stay tuned for additional details.

Fall Workday with Hemlock Restoration Initiative

Volunteer workday to chemically treat and protect Eastern Hemlock trees near native trout streams.

Date and time TBD. Stay tuned for additional information.

NC Bluelining Challenge – Part I

Wilkes, Watauga, and Transylvania Counties

Nonprofit challenge to promote conservation, raise funding and awareness for native brook trout, and promote tourism post-Helene.

Starting January 1st, 2027. Additional information to follow.