WATAUGA, Tenn. (WJHL) – The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) conducted its annual sampling of trout populations in the Watauga River. This is the first sampling of those tailwaters after Hurricane Helene swept through the region.

Jim Habera, TWRA East Tennessee Fisheries Manager, said floodwaters from the Doe River during Helene flowed down into the Watauga River.

The TWRA has 12 sites in the Watauga River where crews sample for rainbow and brown trout.

“So we capture the fish, first of all, by electrofishing with our electrofishing boat,” Habera said. “We’ve got a generator that puts a field out in the water through this electrode array system. And it stuns the fish momentarily and allows us to catch those. We’ll dip those up and put them in our livewell.”

Habera said although this is an annual sampling, this year is important to see how populations were affected by Helene.

“But the good news today is upstream of the Doe River and downstream on the Watauga, things look at least average, if not even better than average. So at this point and we haven’t run through the data yet, but things look really good so far.”

“We’ve had several fish that are over 20 inches, up to about 24 and a quarter inches was the biggest brown trout that we got this year. So that looked really good as well.”

The weight, size, and amount of trout can tell a lot about their population’s condition and their ecosystem’s condition.

“We don’t know exactly how many fish are out there, but it provides us with an index so that we can determine if the trout populations are increasing or decreasing and what the size structures look like and also whether we’re achieving our management plan,” Habera said.

“[If] you’ve got a really really dense, overcrowded population. The fish condition will kind of drop off. It’ll be lower, they’ll get skinnier, which is not a sign of good health. So, as the numbers drop back down to more appropriate levels, you’ll see those conditions increase. So that’s one of the things we can do with the weight. And then length, the length can give us a length frequency histogram that we can determine the size structure out there and see if that’s changing.”

The TWRA stocks the Watauga River tailwater with 43,000 adult rainbow trout. Habera said that will start probably within the next week.

“It’s really important when you have an event like this Hurricane Helene flooding, it gives us the opportunity to look at the fishery and determine if there have been any significant impacts. And if there are, we could adjust our management. We could increase stocking rates if we needed to or even change regulations if we needed.”

Galen Kipar and his friend often fish for trout in the Watauga River. They happen to be a part of the Blue Ridge Guide Association and the Asheville Fly Fishing Company.

“The fishing was pretty good today,” Kipar said. “It’s a very big flow and it’s a blue bird day. So not a record-setting day, but we are still catching fish on these rivers.”

Kipar said the biggest factor after Helene is visibility from sediment from Watauga Lake.

“And so the sloop pipe is below the sediment line in Watauga Lake. So there’s ultimately just a bunch of mud that’s stirred up at the bottom of that lake. And the pipe that pulls water out of that lake and dumps it into Wilbur Reservoir is below that sediment line. So it’s going to just take time for that water to settle to get our clarity back.”

“So what we’ve seen since the flood is just off-color water. So the visibility is a big part of catching fish subsurface or just being able to see the fish.”

Kipar said the land areas near the river, called the riparian zones have mostly been scoured after Helene, which is also a difficulty.

“That was one thing I noticed today, is there’s particular places or trees where I knew where a fish lived. And he’s been there for years, but now that tree is gone. So a lot of fish are in a position where they probably, they’ve had to relocate and find new habitat.”

“When you have clean rocks on the bottom, that’s where all of the bugs start their lifecycle. So when you have a sandy bottom river, all of that sand covers up the rocks and it just smothers the bugs basically. So it it can only support a smaller habitat or density of fish because of the bug life that’s in the river.”

On Wednesday night, the TWRA will conduct trout sampling on the Clinch River. Next week, they will be surveying the Boone and the Fort Patrick Henry tailwaters.

Habera said trout population sampling on the Nolichucky will happen later in the spring.