Two gauges, and the one this page uses
The Red carries two USGS stations that matter. Hazel Green, 03282500, is on the creek-sized upper river in Wolfe County above the gorge, and Kentucky Fish and Wildlife says it should read at least 200 cfs for the best floating on the upper Red; on September 23, 2026 it read under 4 cfs. Clay City, 03283500, is the one on this page, about 25 river miles below the gorge past Stanton, where the river has collected every gorge tributary and settled into farmland; it read just under 30 cfs the same evening. Nobody publishes a fishing range for Clay City, so the 100 to 400 cfs band here is the gauge's own record, the June through October means of roughly 110 to 310 cfs with a little headroom, and it should be read as the middle Red at a wadeable, floatable summer level. The winter means, 780 to 1,070 cfs from January through March, are the whitewater river.
There is a third gauge in the state hub with the same name, Red River at Dot, and it is a different river entirely, the Red that runs through Logan County to the Cumberland at Clarksville. Ignore it here.
19.4 miles from the KY 746 bridge to Schoolhouse Branch
Congress designated the Red as a National Wild and Scenic River on December 2, 1993, and Kentucky Fish and Wildlife gives the exact reach: 19.4 miles from the KY 746 bridge downstream to the mouth of Schoolhouse Branch, the only such designation in Kentucky. The river rises on the Cumberland Plateau east of Campton, cuts west through the Pottsville escarpment into the Red River Gorge Geological Area of the Daniel Boone National Forest, and the Clifty Wilderness holds the middle of it. Wendell Berry wrote The Unforeseen Wilderness to help stop the Corps of Engineers dam that would have flooded the gorge in 1971, and there is no dam.
The department splits the river into two floats with different customers: the swift upper Red for kayakers and the gentle middle Red for canoeists and anglers. The largest golden redhorse ever taken in Kentucky, 4 pounds 5 ounces, came from the Red.
The upper Red is not a fishing float
Put in at the Forest Service's Big Branch launch off KY 746, not at the bridge, and the 10.8 miles to the KY 715 bridge is what the state calls one of the most remote and challenging whitewater stretches in the Southeast. It starts as Class I to the mouth of Stillwater Creek, drops through Stillwater Falls, then the river-wide ledge called the Falls of the Red or Calaboose Falls, run far left or far right at low to moderate water, and after the bend at Peck Branch enters the Narrows: Entrance Rapid, the Dog Drowning Hole, which must be scouted from the right, and a third rapid run center-right above an undercut bank, Class II to III-plus depending on level. Ice storms have filled the gorge with strainers. Whitewater kayaks, helmets and life jackets are the equipment, and the cliffs make portaging hard.
Rainbow and brown trout live in the tributaries here, Swift Camp Creek, the East Fork of Indian Creek and the Middle Fork of the Red, which is where a fly angler goes when the main stem is running 1,000 cfs.
KY 715 to KY 77 to the old ford: where the fish are
The middle Red begins at the KY 715 bridge and runs 10.5 miles to the old ford at the mouth of Schoolhouse Branch, reached by Forest Service Road 23; take out at the KY 77 iron bridge for an 8-mile day or run the last two miles as a summer-evening float on its own. The Forest Service's Copperas Creek canoe launch near the Osborne Bend trailhead is the mostly Class I lower section with sandbars, riffles and small ledges, about six hours for 10.5 miles, with April water at 55 to 60 degrees. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife says plainly that the middle section is the best fishing and that it requires patience: clear water and heavy human traffic make the smallmouth, spotted bass and sunfish jumpy, so downsize the line, wear drab clothing and go small and subtle, 4-inch finesse worms and 3-inch boot-tail grubs for the bass and red in-line spinners for the longear, rock bass and bluegill.
The Forest Service counts about 70 fish species in the river and lists muskellunge among them; the Red is one of the few free-flowing muskie streams in Kentucky, and a spring muskie in a gorge pool is the one fish here that wants a big fly and a wire bite tippet. Red River Adventures at 606-663-1012 and Red River Outdoors at 606-663-7625 run the shuttles.
Statewide limits on a river with no special rule
The Red carries no water-specific regulation in 301 KAR 1:201, so Kentucky's statewide limits govern: six black bass a day with a 12-inch minimum on largemouth and smallmouth and no size limit on spotted bass, 15 rock bass, one muskellunge at 30 inches, 20 crappie, no culling of any species, and for the tributary trout eight rainbows a day with no size limit, one brown at 16 inches and catch and release only on brook trout. A Kentucky fishing license is required everywhere on the river; the national forest does not waive it the way Mammoth Cave National Park does.
Season is a matter of water, not law. The middle Red fishes from the time the Clay City gauge drops into the low hundreds in late spring until the leaves come down, and the upper Red runs when Hazel Green climbs past 200.