LISA BOHM AND PHILLIP W. BETTOLI, Tennessee Cooperative Fishery Research Unit, Box 5114, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee 38505, USA

The Clinch River below Norris Dam in east Tennessee supports a trophy trout fishery and is stocked annually with about 30,000 harvestable and 150,000 fingerling rainbow trout and brown trout. Between August 1995 and August 1996, seven different cohorts of fingerling and harvestable rainbow trout and brown trout were microtagged and stocked (N_TOTAL = 46,000) over a 20 km reach of the river. Growth and survival of tagged trout were investigated by electrofishing 12 fixed transects each month and conducting a roving creel survey. Habitat was surveyed and mapped utilizing a modified version of the Basinwide Visual Estimation Technique. Fingerling rainbow trout and brown trout stocked in February-March 1996 grew well and were commonly collected through October 1996. The catch of tagged trout stocked late in the fishing season (June and August) approached zero substantially faster (40 - 80 days post-stocking) than the catch of tagged trout stocked in April (170 days). The rates of decline for each cohort of harvestable trout varied directly with the amount of fishing pressure the tailwater received. Trout abundance and average size varied among reaches of the river and were affected by differences in habitat and fishing pressure in different reaches of the river.