Straight Fork Watershed - Fly Fishing Smoky Mountains

**Straight Fork Runs** normally
all hold a good number of
wild rainbow trout.

**Straight Fork Flowers:** I don’t
think these are native plants
but they are plentiful along the
stream and very pretty.

Straight Fork Pools & Riffles provides the perfect small stream fly-fishing experience. We think it’s a much overlooked stream, probably due to its proximity to other streams as well as its geographic location.

**Perfect Run:** There’s a brown
or rainbow trout in every small
run like this in Straight Fork
and usually more than one.

Description:
The Straight Fork is a beautiful stream that is probably fished as little as any trout stream in the park of its size and accessibility. The stream flows into the Raven Fork outside of the park’s boundaries near Cherokee, North Carolina.

Stream Size:
The size of this stream ranges from medium to small as compared to other trout streams of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Accessibility:
Much of this stream is accessible from the Straight Fork Road that enters the park at the fish hatchery. The stream leaves the road about five miles from the entrance to the park and from there upstream it’s only accessible by hiking in through heavy brush or wading up the stream.

Straight Fork is also accessible from Balsam Mountain Road that enters the park off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. This road circles around to eventually become the Straight Fork Road.

Species:
The Straight Fork normally has a good population of rainbow and brown trout. The stream also has brook trout in its upper reaches. The brook trout will begin to show up upstream of where the road leaves the stream and in its small tributaries.

Average Fish Size:
The fish in this stream are average size for the park’s better streams.

Popularity:
The Straight Fork is not heavily fished. In fact, considering its size, beauty and easy access, it’s fished very little.

Difficulty:
Much of the stream offers adequate room for casting. Some of it is tightly enclosed in tree limbs and brush, but for the most part it’s easy to fish for a stream of its size. You can fish upstream inside the stream bed wading fairly easy.

Tributary Streams:
The Straight Fork has a few tributary streams but none of them are of substantial size.

Hyatt Creek:
Hyatt Creek is a very small brook trout tributary stream that’s difficult to fish due to the tightly enclosed canopy of rhododendron. The stream is accessible from the Hyatt Ridge trail.

Balsam Corner Creek:
Balsam Corner Creek is another small brook trout tributary stream.

Comments:
This is a great small trout stream in all respects and deserves much more attention than it gets from anglers.