Kentucky

Kentucky's Cumberland River below Wolf Creek Dam in the Lake Cumberland region is the state's premier cold-water fly fishing destination — a powerful tailwater release fishery that produces trophy rainbow and brown trout in water that stays cold year-round despite the state's southern latitude. The tailwater section from the dam downstream to Burkesville is managed as a trophy trout fishery and draws serious anglers from across the mid-South who would otherwise have to travel to Tennessee or North Carolina to find comparable trout water.

Beyond the Cumberland, Kentucky offers excellent warm-water fly fishing that is largely unexplored by the national fly fishing community. The Green River in Mammoth Cave National Park flows through a section of river that was closed to recreational fishing for decades, allowing bass, musky, and other species to achieve sizes rarely encountered elsewhere in the region. The river reopened to limited fishing and provides a unique opportunity to sight-fish to large, unpressured warm-water species in the underground karst landscape of the cave country. The Kentucky River and its tributaries in the Bluegrass Region offer seasonal smallmouth bass fishing in limestone-bedded streams.