Fries Dam to Allisonia: walleye water under the New River Trail
Five dams break up the New in Virginia: Fields, Fries, Byllesby, Buck and Claytor. Below Fries, DWR's float guide starts at its landing off Route 94 in Riverside Park, where ledges and rock run up toward the dam and hold smallmouth, walleye and channel cats. Portage Byllesby and Buck on foot trails of up to half a mile, then float past Ivanhoe and the old lead-mining country around Austinville, where walleye push all the way to the foot of Buck Dam. The new ramp off Route 636 at Austinville leads to Foster Falls Village in New River Trail State Park, with ramps above and 300 yards below the Class III to IV falls. The rock gardens below hold big smallmouth and walleye, and the river slows into Claytor Lake at the Allisonia ramp off Route 693.
This is the reach where DWR has rebuilt its native New River strain of walleye: more than a million fingerlings stocked from Fries Dam to Allisonia since 2000. Walleye run up from Claytor Lake as early as February and peak in March. The 2026 forecast points smallmouth anglers wanting steady catches to Fries, Ivanhoe and Foster Falls, and those after fish over 17 inches to the water below Fields Dam, Ivanhoe and the Shot Tower area.
Claytor Dam to Glen Lyn: the reach with the records
Below Claytor Dam the river runs 63 miles to the West Virginia line, and it produced Virginia's state-record smallmouth (8 pounds 1 ounce, Donald Eaton, March 12, 2003) and muskie (45 pounds 8 ounces, June 1, 2007). DWR's 2021 angler's guide names Whitethorne to Eggleston and Pembroke to Pearisburg as the best smallmouth floats, and its 2026 forecast adds that catch rates of smallmouth over 17 inches hit an all-time high in 2025, with Eggleston, Rich Creek, Whitethorne and Clendenin Shoals the best bets for a citation fish. For muskie DWR singles out Claytor Dam to Radford and the Whitethorne area. From the Whitethorne ramp at the end of Route 623, the river drops over Big Falls about five miles down at the Giles County line. The last Virginia float ends at the DWR Glen Lyn landing above the Route 460 bridge; do not run Shumate's Falls below it.
Growth is steady rather than fast. DWR's aging work shows lower New smallmouth reaching 11 inches at about four and a half years, 14 at six and a half, 17 at eight and a half and 20 inches at around ten. Spawning success depends more on July river flow than anything else, which is why good and bad year classes show up years later in the catch.
Three size rules on one river, and a PCB advisory
Bass: DWR's 2026 table protects largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass from 14 to 22 inches from Fields Dam in Grayson County down to the West Virginia line, with a five-bass creel and one over 22 inches. The same rule covers lower Big Walker Creek and Wolf Creek in Giles County and the Little River below Little River Dam. Muskie: from Claytor Dam to the state line the limit is one per day, with no muskie from 40 to 48 inches kept from June 1 through the last day of February and none under 48 inches from March 1 through May 31. Walleye: in Claytor Lake and the river upstream to Fries Dam, two per day and none from 19 to 28 inches.
If you keep fish below Claytor, read the advisory first. From Claytor Dam to the West Virginia line the Virginia Department of Health advises eating no carp and no more than two meals a month of channel or flathead catfish because of PCB contamination.
The Glen Lyn number, and Claytor's releases
USGS 03176500 is at Glen Lyn, the last gauge before the river leaves Virginia, so it adds up everything from Claytor Dam, the Little River, Walker Creek and Wolf Creek. No shop publishes a float range for it; the 1,500 to 3,800 cfs band shown here is the middle half of the gauge's July through September record since 1939, when the smallmouth fishing is best. Spring medians run 5,000 to 6,500 cfs. The Radford and Ivanhoe gauges are better guides above Eggleston and in the upper river.
Appalachian Power's Claytor Dam and the upriver dams release large volumes to generate electricity, and DWR warns against wading mid-river or camping near the bank below Claytor when it is releasing. A rise at Radford with no rain is usually the dam.
Crayfish in March, buzzbaits in August, muskie in the cold
DWR's two documents disagree slightly on the best trophy months, one naming March through May and the other July through September, and both say crayfish imitations work all year. MidCurrent's March piece recommends Chuck Kraft's Clawdad in size 4 to 6, Clouser Minnows and Murray's Hellgrammite for pre-spawn fish in 46 to 52 degree water, with bass spawning in late April. Summer is the topwater season, with poppers, damsel patterns and, on the flat pools, the White Fly hatch Murray's Fly Shop times to July and August. Blue Ridge Fishing Adventures fishes for muskie through the colder months with large slow flies near structure, and targets walleye from late winter into early spring.