Explore Kentucky’s trout water from KDFWR’s 2026 trout program: the Lake Cumberland tailwater below Wolf Creek Dam, the other dam tailwaters, seasonal catch-and-release streams such as Swift Camp, Rock Creek and Floyds Fork, the wild brook trout streams of the Red River Gorge and Pine Mountain, and the stocked streams, with public land, fishing access and river gauges.
Check before you fish. Access, stocking and regulations here come from Kentucky's own data and can be out of date. Posted signs and landowners' wishes come first, and private land needs permission. The rules that apply are in the Kentucky trout regulation (301 KAR 1:201), and you need a valid fishing license.
Bold where the stream crosses public land; faint and dashed across private land. Gauges are measurement stations; a nearby gauge may be on a different stream.
Stream types · Kentucky
Bold where the stream crosses public land
KDFWR publishes its trout streams as a table, not a map layer. Each reach is drawn on the stream’s Kentucky NHD channel from KDFWR’s own description: river miles up from the mouth, miles below a dam, a road bridge, the state line or a park’s boundary. The ends are as close as those descriptions allow; check signs and KDFWR’s maps on the water.
Seasonal catch and release means no trout may be kept from October 1 through March 31, and only artificial baits are allowed then. The Lake Cumberland tailwater has its own size and daily limits. Wild brook trout streams are small headwaters; the line on Parched Corn and Shillalah creeks shows the whole creek, and the part of Shillalah Creek inside Cumberland Gap National Historical Park is closed to fishing.
Not on the map: Hatchery Creek below Wolf Creek National Fish Hatchery (it isn’t in the stream data), Roundstone Creek, Gunpowder Creek in Sperti Park, Tripplett Creek in Morehead, Right Fork Beaver Creek, the Hwy 167 section of Beaver Creek, Cane Creek (closed in 2026) and the two Fort Campbell streams in Tennessee.
Stocking is announced monthly by KDFWR, and the Cumberland tailwater and Daniel Boone National Forest stockings aren’t announced. Check the current trout regulation before fishing.
Highlighted banks adjoin mapped open-access public land, with a roughly 20-meter bank tolerance. Dimmed water has no adjacent open-access parcel recorded in this source. Neither determines legal entry, rights of way or permission to cross private land. Check signs, property rules and the current fishing regulations.
Access markers are source facility locations within about 800 meters of mapped water, not verified parking spaces or guaranteed entry to a particular reach. River-gauge readings describe the gauged location; a nearby gauge on another stream is shown as context.