Smith River

The Smith River below Philpott Dam is Virginia's best wild brown trout tailwater and one of the most technical trout streams in the eastern United States. Philpott Dam pulls water off the bottom of Philpott Lake, so the river runs a steady ~50°F even in August — cold enough to hold trout for 31 miles, from the dam down through Bassett and Martinsville to the County Route 636 (Mitchell Bridge) crossing, before it warms into smallmouth water toward the North Carolina line. The state claims roughly 60% of all its stream-bred brown trout live in this one river, and the Smith owns Virginia's brown trout record — an 18-pound, 11-ounce fish landed in 1979 back when alewives flushing through the dam's turbines fed a genuine trophy fishery. That forage vanished in the 1980s and the giants went with it, but self-sustaining wild browns still fill the river and fish into the high teens and low twenties come out below Martinsville every year.

Fish it and you learn fast that "cold tailwater" doesn't mean "easy." The Smith runs slow, glassy, and clear over long flats up to 100 feet wide, and a clumsy wading step sends a wake down the pool that empties it. This is sight-fishing to spooky wild browns on light tippet and tiny flies — midges are king year-round in sizes 20-26, and the year's big event is the Sulphur / Pale Evening Dun emergence from about the first of May through June, when afternoon hatches finally reward a dry fly. Hendricksons show mid-March into April, Light Cahills and caddis fill out late spring, crane flies are thick in April and May, and summer is a terrestrial game of beetles, ants, hoppers, and inchworms. Blue-Winged Olives trickle through the cold months but never define the fishing. The upper dozen miles below the dam hold the most fish — wild browns 6-12 inches plus stocked rainbows in the top few miles — while abundance drops and average size climbs the farther down you go.

The honest history here is about the dam. For decades Philpott ran on hydropeaking generation, and scheduled power releases would surge the river without warning — a wading-safety hazard and a stress on the fishery, compounded by long-standing sediment problems that embed the bottom and bury spawning gravel. After flood damage around 2020, Philpott stopped generating power, which ended the sharp peaking pulses and gave wild browns steadier, more predictable flows; the current river is calmer than the one older guidebooks describe. It still bounces on flood-control and rain-driven releases, so check the gauge before you commit to a section. Access is good — nine public access points run by Henry County Parks & Recreation and the Dan River Basin Association string along the river from the dam through Bassett, Fieldale, Marrowbone, and Martinsville.