1908 to June 2023
The Champion paper mill opened in Canton in 1908, six and a half miles below where the East and West forks meet, and NCWRC's own magazine described what came out of it: water the color of coffee, dioxins, furans and chloroform, and by 1988 a do-not-consume advisory on every fish below the mill. Walters Dam impounded that water in 1930. The EPA forced upgrades in the early 1980s, Champion spent close to $300 million on modernization, the color improved to what the state called weak tea, and in 1999 the employees bought the mill as Blue Ridge Paper, later Evergreen Packaging under Pactiv Evergreen. On March 6, 2023 Pactiv announced it would close the mill; paper production stopped May 24 and the last workers left June 8, 2023. The company was required to keep running Canton's wastewater plant for two years afterward.
The 2004 relicensing had already set aside the bypass question: a 12-mile section of the river below Walters Dam is bypassed through a six-mile tunnel to the powerhouse, and the license only requires rewatering it if water quality standards are met.
Fourteen species in May, twenty-eight in July
NCWRC biologist Luke Etchison sampled the river at Blackwell Drive in Canton, between Canton and Clyde, and at the Charles Street bridge in Clyde before and after the shutdown. In May 2023 the crews found 14 species and 157 fish. In July 2023, with the mill cold, they found 28 species and 2,626 fish, including juvenile smallmouth, mottled sculpin and dense caddis larvae. The mill had been raising the river about six degrees, with 118 days a year above 80 degrees downstream, and conductivity dropped from over 600 to about 150 once it closed. Etchison caught a single brown trout at both the Canton and Clyde sites but said the river is unlikely to become a trout fishery. The smallmouth were not stocked; they moved in on their own. Separately, the Pigeon River Recovery Project that TWRA and NCWRC began in 2001 has reintroduced gilt, banded and other darters, silver, Tennessee and telescope shiners and bigeye chub to the North Carolina reach, more than 37,000 fish of 12 species by 2015.
Below the powerhouse: 120 cfs off, 1,300 on
USGS 03460795 sits just below the Walters powerhouse near Waterville, at the top of the rafting section that runs 4.3 miles to the Hartford bridge in Tennessee. Its record for September 2026 is as clean a two-state signal as a gauge gives: 120 to 135 cfs with the plant off, 1,310 to 1,620 cfs with it running, and nothing in between except the ramp. Each of the three turbines passes a little over 600 cfs at full load, and the outfitters at Hartford say a scheduled release is usually two turbines plus Big Creek, about 1,300 to 1,400 cfs. The plant is 104 megawatts, fed by the tunnel from Waterville Lake, and Duke's license runs to 2034. Asheville Fly Fishing Company fishes this reach as a smallmouth river with fish it puts at one to four pounds, and the way to do it is on the off days at 120 cfs, wading the shoals, which is the basis for the 100 to 300 cfs band on this page; above 300 the hard boats put in and above 600 the rafts do.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, noon to six
Duke schedules recreational releases from Memorial Day to Labor Day on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from noon to 6 p.m., 75 days a year by the company's own count, with a rolling three-day forecast on its flow-release page and a phone line at 1-800-899-4435. Outside the summer schedule the plant runs when the grid wants power, which is why September shows weekday generation with no pattern. Hurricane Helene in September 2024 rebuilt the rapids and the access; American Whitewater reports the 2026 put-in is at the bridge off the Waterville exit rather than at the powerhouse, which is closed until 2027.
The trout are on the forks, the smallmouth are on the main stem
NCWRC's 2026 to 2027 Haywood County list has no Delayed Harvest or Hatchery Supported section on the Pigeon main stem between Canton and Waterville Lake, and the wild trout rule for game lands expressly excludes the Pigeon below Waterville Reservoir to the state line. The one main-stem trout listing is short: Hatchery Supported from Stamey Cove Branch to the upstream U.S. 19-23 bridge around Clyde, seven fish, no size or bait rule, open August 1, 2026 to February 28, 2027 and again from 7 a.m. April 3, 2027. The real trout water is upstream. The West Fork is Hatchery Supported from Tom Creek to Queen Creek and Delayed Harvest from Queen Creek to the first game land boundary above Lake Logan, catch-and-release on single-hook artificials from October 1, 2026 to June 4, 2027; Hookers Fly Shop describes it as about five miles of stocked water and two of Delayed Harvest with wild brookies above and wild browns below. The East Fork on Pisgah game land is Wild Trout water, seven-inch minimum, four fish, single hook. Everywhere on the main stem, smallmouth are five a day with a 14-inch minimum and two allowed under it.
Canton Park, the Clyde bridges and the Waterville exit
Access is thin because nobody fished this water for a century. NCWRC's public fishing areas are Canton Park on Penland Street, with a pier and trailer parking, and the two Cold Mountain bank-fishing sites on NC 215 on the West Fork. The Charles Street bridge in Clyde and the road crossings between Canton and Clyde are the sampling sites and the bank spots; there is no state boat ramp on the main stem. Below the dam the put-in is off I-40's Waterville exit. Tuckaseegee Fly Shop's Waynesville store on Main Street is the closest shop, and Hunter Banks in Asheville and Asheville Fly Fishing Company guide the tailwater.