Fish Your Wish

Waist high in the Tuckasegee River, Zach Shively holds Amy Toth’s hand as he slowly leads her toward a “run”—a place where trout might be feeding. She’s worried about slipping. The water on this early spring day is about 50 degrees.

Toth’s husband, Mike, watches from a few yards away. All three are dressed in gray chest waders and dark brown felt-bottomed boots and carrying fly-fishing rods. Shively, a guide from Fish Tales Outfitters in Franklin, also carries a net and a backpack full of assorted flies and fluorocarbon leaders—the sections between the main line and the flies, which imitate real insects at various stages of development. 

Shively is teaching the couple how to “roll cast,”or pitch their lines while using the tension between the fly and the water’s surface to propel it forward.

For the first half hour or so, the Toths have no luck. But Amy is not discouraged. “It’s called fishing, not catching,” she says. “My expectation isn’t to catch fish per se, it’s to practice the technique, relax, and be in nature.” 

Shively, 22, guides them to a new spot in the catch-and-release section of the river. The couple, both 48 and new to fly-fishing, traveled here from Cumming, Georgia and hired Shively for a morning on the Tuckasegee River, known to locals as “the Tuck.”

Trout live mostly in cool mountain rivers and streams, and Western North Carolina welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year looking to take part in this tranquil recreation. 

Cars and trucks rumble past on the two roads lining the river, which is about 100 yards wide at this entry. At least a dozen anglers are enjoying a comfortable morning chill, a sky nearly clear of clouds, and a choir of tree swallows, red-winged blackbirds, and Carolina wrens. 

Fly-fishing techniques can be learned, but what’s happening beneath the water is largely out of an angler’s control. North Carolina’s Wildlife Resources Commission has helped boost the number of fish in the water by stocking it with young fish from state-run hatcheries since the 1950s. 

But flooding and landslides from September 2024’s Hurricane Helene decimated the Armstrong State Fish Hatchery in McDowell County, killing 675,000 fish and disrupting planned improvements to the state’s trout fish management system. 

Armstrong is up and running again, but the state’s largest hatchery—Bobby N. Setzer State Fish Hatchery in Transylvania County—is now closed for renovation until 2028. The closure has led to a 65% reduction in the number of trout the state is able to stock this year. Normally, the state stocks about 968,000 trout each spring. This year, it expects about 332,000, said hatchery production supervisor David Deaton.

In 2025, Setzer still was operating, and even after Helene, the state was able to stock about 90% of its trout. Some streams, such as in Mitchell County, were so damaged by Helene that the state wasn’t able to stock them, Deaton said.

Business owners and economic development officials in a region that has long touted its pristine environment and plentiful trout supply hope that, despite the reduction in stocked trout, the area will still draw tourists and the much-needed injection of their spending dollars. 

“Trout fishing matters to our tourism economy, “ said Nick Breedlove, executive director of the Jackson County Tourism Development Authority, “but it’s one of many outdoor activities that bring people here—alongside our waterfalls, paddling, hiking, scenic drives, and our towns. Travelers are still showing up for all of it, and we expect that to continue.”

Where the Fish Are

Known for its easy access to anglers of every ability level, the Tuck is Western North Carolina’s largest trout river. It begins within the Nantahala National Forest in Jackson County and flows about 60 miles northwest, where it empties into Swain County’s Fontana Lake. 

Jackson County, which borders the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, started promoting its trout fishing in brochures and postcards as early as the 1930s. “The entire county is criss-crossed with streams which offer excellent mountain fishing,” one brochure read. 

In 2016, state legislators designated Jackson County the Trout Capital of North Carolina—the result of about a decade of marketing trout fishing as a tool for economic development at a time when tobacco farming was in decline, said Joe Sam Queen, 75, a former state lawmaker. Tobacco had been the primary local cash crop, but when federal tobacco support ended in 2004, demand fell and cigarette makers turned to cheaper leaves overseas. 

“It’s hard to make a living out this way,” he said. “You can enjoy the air and the scenery and the beautiful green trees and the wilderness, but how do you make a living?” Queen thought trout fishing might be the answer. 

Queen successfully lobbied in 2007 for a law to designate “mountain heritage trout water cities” that could offer cheaper temporary fishing licenses and loaner fly-fishing rods. Seventeen communities participate currently. 

“It was sort of a way to entice youngsters and visitors to try trout fishing while they were in the mountains,” Queen said. “And every city that got certified got their trout stream certified. We also ramped up the stocking so there’d be lots of trout in it for the novice fishermen to catch.”

Trout fishing provides an economic boost to rural communities: a 2023 study by the Commission estimates trout fishing’s economic impact as $1.38 billion, more than doubling its impact of $383 million eight years prior, according to reports from the North Carolina Wildlife Commission. 

In 2009, the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce created the Western North Carolina Fly Fishing Trail, marketed as the first fly-fishing trail in the country. It was trademarked in 2018. Maps and brochures of the trail include the GPS coordinates of 15 fishing spots with brook, brown, and rainbow trout, as well as information about fishing guides, lodging, and gear shops.

The promotions helped revitalize small mountain communities, Queen said. “Not only did we have the trout cities, but then the outfitters that popped up, the restaurants that made trout famous… We also had good ol’ boys that loved to trout fish that started taking people on fishing trips for $250 a day. They were making out like bandits.” 

Microbreweries, craft shops, and more businesses catering to tourists followed, he said.

Despite the reduced trout stocking this year, passion for fishing continues to surge. The state issued licenses to authorize inland fishing to 74,803 anglers in the first three months of 2026, a 48.2% increase from the same period in 2022, according to data supplied by the commission. 

“I’m seeing plenty of fishermen on these streams,” said Parker Andes, president of the Land of Sky chapter of Trout Unlimited in Asheville, who fishes for trout several times a week.

Casting Doubt

Two main hatcheries produce trout in North Carolina: Armstrong and Bobby N. Setzer State Fish Hatchery in Transylvania County. 

During spawning seasons, hatchery employees incubate fertilized eggs, produced in such a way to sterilize the trout so they can’t reproduce. It takes about a year for the fish to grow into a stockable size of at least 10 inches. The trout grow outdoors in raceways, giant concrete tanks dug into the ground, until staff drive to designated access points on the Tuck and other waterways for releases. They carry them to the river with nets. 

“Sometimes we might use a bucket,” Deaton said. “If you have to go a little bit further to get to the water, we might load fish up in a bucket with some water just to keep them alive, and then run it down to the water. And occasionally you’re lucky and can pull over a bridge or something and just net them out and toss them directly into the water.”

The wildlife commission had begun planning to renovate the Setzer hatchery, the state’s largest, in 2018. “The infrastructure was getting very shabby,” said Deaton. “Basically, one pipe could break, and we’d lose everything there.” After the 2024 storm, “we had to adapt and overcome to maintain the trout program,” said Deaton. “In the long run, we will have a more resilient program.”

The state had planned to close and renovate Setzer in January 2025 while maximizing production at Armstrong. But when Helene destroyed Armstrong, those plans were paused.

Setzer, which generally produces at least 65% of the trout for the state’s stocking program, closed this January for the planned $50 million renovation. It is not expected to be back in production until 2028. 

Repairs began on Armstrong in December 2024, and was partly operational by March 2025 using fish transferred from Setzer. “We filled every raceway we could,” Deaton said. Armstrong was fully operational by last December, Deaton said. 

About half the money for Setzer’s renovation came from a 2024 appropriation from the North Carolina General Assembly, and the rest from the agency’s endowment fund. 

In May 2024, tourism officials in Jackson, Haywood, Transylvania, and Swain counties, as well as the executive director of Visit Highlands, a chamber of commerce group that promotes Highlands, North Carolina, were so worried about the pending closure of Setzer that they wrote to state legislators, urging them to “explore potential solutions to mitigate the economic impact on Western North Carolina.”

“The current plan to reduce trout stocking by such a large margin will inevitably result in substantial revenue and employment losses across multiple counties,” their letter read. “Local businesses, including guide services, outfitters, tackle shops, restaurants, gas stations and lodging establishments, will suffer as anglers seek other destinations with healthier fish populations, and we risk losing them permanently,” 

In an effort to limit the impact of Setzer’s closure on the supply, the agency recently purchased a small private fish hatchery—Glady Fork in Transylvania County—for slightly more than $1 million. The state is also buying trout from private hatcheries. But those hatcheries, which produce rainbow trout for restaurants and supermarkets, have a limited surplus to sell to the state, said Deaton.

“To keep the program rolling, we had to do these renovations,” Deaton said. “We know that because of the renovations, because of the reductions, there are anglers that are not going to be happy … The beauty of it all is, we get through this couple years, the program’s going to be better.” 

But business owners and fly-fish guides who rely on a steady stream of anglers worry. They said they had already weathered the devastating impact of Helene on their livelihoods. Some are concerned the lower stocking—combined with higher gas prices —could impact sales and trip bookings. 

“As of right now, our numbers are consistent with past years, possibly a slight down trend,” said Ernie King, 68, owner of Fish Tales Outfitters. “Some of this could be the current economy, including the fuel cost to travel to North Carolina.”

The storm wiped out the fall 2024 fishing season in Jackson County, as state leaders warned against travel and tourism to Western North Carolina. That included counties like Jackson that had minimal storm damage, said Dale Collins, 43, co-owner of Tuckasegee Fly Shop. His three shops employ 14 people. 

Collins remains hopeful that the reduced numbers of stocked trout in Jackson County’s rivers and streams will not discourage anglers this year. 

“Let’s say in every other stocking, there’s been 15 fish in this spot,” he said. “Now there’s going to be 10. Is an angler going to know the difference? They’re going to catch three out of there regardless.”

Catch a Good Time

Interest in fly fishing flourished after the release of A River Runs Through It, the 1992 movie featuring Brad Pitt. Fly fishing, which is used to catch trout, salmon, and grayling, uses artificial ultralight lures called flies that imitate insects in their various stages. 

The sport is often portrayed as a hobby for wealthy people; even on a budget, the start-up cost of waders and fishing equipment can run to $500 to $600. But its origins in this pocket of Appalachia are humble. “For us here and our generations that have left us, it was a way to put food on the table,” said Shannon Messer, 55, who works at Tuckasegee Fly Shop in Sylva. “Here in Appalachia, people were poor,” he said. 

At a shop, one fly can cost about $3.50 and, depending on the size and quality, can run as high as $8. In contrast, locals once “tied flies out of stuff you had around the house,” said Messer, such as chicken feathers or a piece of elastic from the waistband of a woman’s girdle, or even doll hair.

“They farmed, had a lot of kids, and they fished.” 

On the morning the Toths were learning to fly fish, the river was dotted with other anglers. 

Isaiah Giddens, a 17-year-old from Rome, Georgia, was fly fishing with four friends during his spring break. The teenagers were staying at his grandmother’s mountain home. The lower number of stocked trout in the Tuck didn’t bother him. “Even if all we come out here and do is catch a good time, it’s still just fun to fish and throw a fly around and just be at peace,” Giddens said. 

After less than an hour on the Tuck, Giddens had landed one standard-sized rainbow trout of about eight to nine inches. “It’s just so pure—it’s such a pure form of fishing,” he said. 

Keith Fincher, 56, and his son-in-law, Bo Evans, 26, were fishing the Tuck with Nick Johnson, a guide from Highland Hiker. 

Fincher and Evans had rented a house near Cashiers for the week. The men fished while their wives shopped in nearby Highlands. They estimated the week-long vacation cost them between $5,000 and $6,000. Fincher had already caught a trout and was hooked on the experience: “When else can I come up here?” he said.

​​Amy Toth, a child and adolescent counselor, was unaware of the reduction in stocked trout when she booked her trip, using Chat GPT to find a spot within a three-hour drive of their home. It probably wouldn’t have changed her plans, she said. They rented an Airbnb in Highlands for three nights, and planned to spend their final night at an upscale hotel. Between meals, lodging, and $375 for the Fish Tales’ four-hour “walk and wade,” the couple spent nearly $2,000. 

Learning to fly fish in cold water, surrounded by nature, was a “grounding experience” that evoked happy childhood memories of fishing with her father in Utah, she said.

By the end of the morning on the Tuck, she had reeled in three rainbow and one brown trout. “There is exhilaration when you catch something,” she said.