South Carolina Trout Stocking Report 2026

Every sentence here comes from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), and each section names its sources. Updated October 16, 2026.

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) stocks trout from mid-February to mid-November in the mountain streams of Oconee, Pickens and Greenville counties, and in Lake Jocassee and the cold tailwaters below Lake Hartwell and Lake Murray when the water is cool enough. It does not announce dates ahead; its Weekly Trout Stocking Summary lists where trout went in the week before. Every trout SCDNR stocks comes from the Walhalla State Fish Hatchery in Oconee County, its only coldwater hatchery, which raises rainbow, brown and brook trout, most of them to a catchable 9 to 12 inches.

From SCDNR: Walhalla State Fish Hatchery, Fish Culture, SCDNR: Walhalla State Fish Hatchery, Stocking Locations, SCDNR: Walhalla State Fish Hatchery, Frequently Asked Questions, SCDNR: Weekly Trout Stocking Summary, SCDNR: Walhalla State Fish Hatchery, About us and SCDNR: Walhalla State Fish Hatchery.

The SCDNR trout stocking report

The waters SCDNR stocked in the past week, day by day, with the week’s total, and the week before underneath. It is a record, not a forecast, and it says when the Lower Saluda was stocked. It lists a phone number for questions about the upstate program and another for the Lower Saluda.

Open the Weekly Trout Stocking Summary

South Carolina Trout Fishing Guide: SCDNR’s guide to the trout waters it manages, stream by stream, with how each is stocked, and 13 maps of access areas with driving directions.

From SCDNR: Weekly Trout Stocking Summary and SCDNR: South Carolina Trout Fishing (PDF guide).

When South Carolina stocks trout

Mountain streams

Most of the stocking goes into the streams and rivers of Oconee, Pickens and Greenville counties, from mid-February to mid-November, heaviest in spring and fall when the streams are in best shape. Some lower streams are skipped in July and August, when they run too warm. The trucks stock at bridges and pull-offs, and in peak season two truckloads go out five or six days a week. Most fish go in at about 9 inches and a smaller number at 12 inches or more. Some small streams get only fingerlings of 3 to 5 inches, and remote stretches of the Chattooga and Chauga rivers are stocked by helicopter.

Lake Jocassee

Lake Jocassee, a 7,567-acre reservoir, holds trout all year and is stocked with brown and rainbow trout every year. In 2025 the stocking ran from December into January, aiming at 7,500 sterile and 7,500 fertile brown trout and 15,000 rainbows spread across the lake.

Tailwaters below Lake Murray and Lake Hartwell

The Lower Saluda, the cold water released from Lake Murray near Columbia, is stocked from the second or third week of December until March: nearly 30,000 rainbow and brown trout a year by SCDNR’s count in 2021. The fish grow fast, and some pass 20 inches within one to two years. The Lake Hartwell tailwater, on the Savannah River at the Georgia line, is stocked mostly with adult rainbow trout from March to June, by SCDNR and Georgia’s DNR, according to SCDNR’s trout guide.

From SCDNR: Walhalla State Fish Hatchery, Frequently Asked Questions, SCDNR: Walhalla State Fish Hatchery, Fish Culture, SCDNR: Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Advisory Committee minutes, 13 February 2025 (PDF), SCDNR: Weekly Trout Stocking Summary, SCDNR: Thousands of trout to be stocked in Saluda River near Columbia (23 December 2021) and SCDNR: South Carolina Trout Fishing (PDF guide).

Rules on stocked water

Anglers 16 and older need a South Carolina freshwater fishing license, unless fishing a privately owned pond. A resident pays $10 for a year or $5 for 14 days; a nonresident pays $35 for a year or $11 for 14 days.
On the Chattooga, every channel of the Savannah including the Hartwell tailwater, and the border lakes, a license from either South Carolina or Georgia is good, but not on the streams that feed them.
You may keep 5 trout a day. On the Lower Saluda only one of the five may be longer than 16 inches.
On Lake Jocassee the limit is 3 trout. From October through May each must be at least 15 inches, with no more than one over 20; from June through September any length counts. Corn, cheese, fish eggs and imitations of them may not be used or carried on the lake.
These waters are catch and release from November 1 through May 14, with single-hook artificial lures only: the Chattooga from SC 28 up to Reed Creek; Cheohee Creek through the Piedmont Forestry Center; Devils Fork, Howard and Corbin creeks; the Chauga from Cassidy Bridge Road up to Bone Camp Creek; and Eastatoe Creek from Lake Keowee up to Roy Jones Road.
Only artificial lures may be used or carried on the Whitewater River, Matthews Creek above the Asbury Drive bridge, the Middle Saluda from the Jones Gap footbridge up to US 176, and Eastatoe Creek on the Eastatoe Heritage Preserve. Below that footbridge, down to Hugh Smith Road, the Middle Saluda is catch and release all year, on single-hook artificial lures.
Snagging trout is illegal.

From SCDNR: License requirements, SCDNR: SC Fishing and Hunting License Pricing, SCDNR: SC Resident Fishing and Hunting License Pricing, SCDNR: SC Nonresident Fishing and Hunting License Pricing, South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 50, Chapter 13: Protection of Fish and South Carolina Code of Regulations, Chapter 123: Department of Natural Resources (PDF).

How to hear about a stocking

The Weekly Trout Stocking Summary is the place to check: each week it lists where trout went in, with the week before kept underneath.
SCDNR does not release the times of its stocking runs; the summary tells you afterwards where they went.

From SCDNR: Weekly Trout Stocking Summary and SCDNR: South Carolina Trout Fishing (PDF guide).

Worth knowing before you go looking

Only streams classified as navigable may be waded and fished, and only from a legal way in and out. Wading a non-navigable stream without the adjoining landowner’s permission is trespassing.
The Greenville Watershed is closed to trout fishing: its two reservoirs, Table Rock and North Saluda (Poinsett), and the North and South Saluda rivers and their tributaries there.
Below Hartwell Dam the river can rise fast and rough when the generators start, and a horn sounds first. Wading is allowed, but the rocks are slippery, so take great care.

From SCDNR: South Carolina Trout Fishing (PDF guide).

Which day to fish it

The schedule says where the fish went in. Which day to go is a different question: the forecast scores each day of the week for trout at the water you pick, from its water temperature, the wind and the weather.

See the week for rainbow trout

Species guides: Rainbow Trout · Brown Trout · Brook Trout

Sources

Every sentence above was read on one of these pages, and a check re-reads each quoted line against the page it came from.

Spotted something out of date or plain wrong here? Tell us and we will check it.