Fish Todd Island
NC Mountain Heritage Trout Waters

Three miles downriver from downtown Todd, North Carolina, the New River wraps around a ten-acre island. This is Todd Island — our home water, a designated North Carolina Mountain Heritage Trout Water, and one of the few places in the High Country where public access, wild mountain character, and a healthy trout fishery all come together in one bend of the river.

What the Heritage Designation Means

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission created the Mountain Heritage Trout Waters program to recognize trout fishing for what it has always been in these mountains: a living tradition. Only a handful of western North Carolina communities carry the designation, and Todd is one of them. It is a partnership between the NCWRC and the Todd Community Preservation Organization, which owns and maintains Todd Island Park — a working example of the local, community-led conservation we believe in.

For visiting anglers, the designation has a practical perk: North Carolina offers a special three-day Mountain Heritage Trout Waters license, an inexpensive way for a traveler to fish designated waters legally without a full annual license. Rules and license details change, so check the NCWRC for the current word before you go — or book with us and we’ll walk you through it.

The Fishing

The New River around Todd Island fishes under Delayed Harvest regulations from October 1 through the first Saturday in June — catch-and-release, single-hook artificial lures only, and the NCWRC stocks the water around the island several times through fall and spring with brook, brown, and rainbow trout. That window is prime time: cool water, willing fish, and the kind of numbers that let a newer angler learn what a drift is supposed to feel like.

We fish it the way we fish everything: wading, small groups, every fish released with care. The island water offers riffles, seams, and long soft runs — honest teaching water where you can read the river, not just cast at it. In the warm months we watch water temperatures closely and move to cooler water when the trout need us to; that is part of the deal on every Barefoot trip.

A Little History

A century ago, Todd was a railroad boomtown — and, quite literally, the end of the line. The Norfolk & Western’s Abingdon Branch ran some 76 miles down from Virginia, through Damascus and over the mountains, to its southern terminus right here at Todd. The slow climb through that steep country earned the train its nickname — the “Virginia Creeper” — and it hauled timber out past hotels, mills, and a bustling main street. The bustle faded when the timber played out and, in 1933, the tracks were pulled back to West Jefferson. The river outlasted all of it. The New River is among the oldest on Earth, and the quiet water you fish at Todd Island today runs right through that history — the very road to the park is the old rail bed.

Visiting Todd Island Park

• Located where Todd Railroad Grade Road meets Castle Ford Road, about three miles from downtown Todd
• Open to the public during daylight hours
• Owned and maintained by the Todd Community Preservation Organization