Turtletown Creek

Off Hwy 68 near Farner to off F.S. road 23

Reach banner
DifficultyIV-V
Length4.6 mi
Avg Gradient107 fpm
GaugeTellico River at Tellico Plains, Tn
Flow Rate as of 1 hour
136 cfsbelow recommended
Reach Info Last UpdatedApril 13, 2024

River Description

Turtletown Creek is a cool run, and mainly not for actual run itself. Weird I know, but here is my reasoning and I will admit I'm bias.

I'm biased for the fact the Brian Collins and I got a first D on the run, but that's the tip of the iceberg. I'm mainly more bias due to the fact I spent a couple of summers up in Ducktown ,Tennessee area trout fishing while raft guiding on the Ocoee River, and feel in love with the place.

It has hiking trail beside it for the upper part, so scouting is easy. The trail head is you're put-in, near Farner, Tennessee and you will Forest Service sign if you pay attention and the take-out is off Forest Service road #23,and you will need minor map reading skills, and is on page 26 of my Tennessee Atlas Gazettteer. With today's access issues, this makes it gem just for takeout and put-in alone.

Want a better reason? Turtletown has one of the best watersheds in the area, I have trout fished in the headwaters even in the pastures and caught nice trout, and they love clean water. The headwater area is in pastural land, and acts like a battery on the streamflow, so the creek is slow to rise and fall, and can be based off the Tellico River internet gauge. As Ted Hayes pointed out to me and I agree and have to mention, the river widens out after the put-in, ,and narrows back up at the take-out, so the water by visual only can be deceiving, so you want descent flow at the put-in. The run is short too, and nothing epic.

It has some really nice drops, not that many but two that do situate out on their own and all are straight forward creek boating rapids.

The first big one, is the first big one, named

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River Features

Put In

Distance: 0 mi

Take Out

Distance: 4.2 mi
Take Out

KS
Ken Strickland

Jan 1, 1900


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