We'll have to agree to disagree on some of that. I think specks could live just about anywhere in the GSMNP right now except for the lower reaches of the Little River, Abrams Creek, and a couple other bigger, lower, warmer stretches. The main reason they don't nowadays is not poor water quality, it's competition from rainbows and browns. I have personally seen rainbows and browns completely take over a couple of really good speck streams in a matter of just a few years after they somehow got around a natural barrier where they weren't before. The GSMNP over the last several years have been eliminating rainbows and browns and restoring specks in quite a few creeks with good natural barriers, all successfully so far as long as they get completely rid of the other trout.Disagree. Although acid deposition is a problem on many western facing slopes and high points (especially near the Tennessee border), higher elevation streams are verified better quality due to cooler temperatures, higher oxygen saturation and less sediment. That is without question.
This is straight from the NCWRC page:
'Wild brook trout are most abundant in isolated, high-altitude headwater streams where the water is free of pollution and rich in oxygen. Brook trout prefer streams with stable water flows, silt-free gravel for spawning'
If stocked fish were a problem for specks, then their own fingerlings would cease to exist. The reason they used to exist below 2000' feet where they don't now is because of water quality and the reason they are beginning to pop up now in lower places especially in the GSMNP and NF, is due to conservation efforts and habitat restoration to improve water quality, such as dumping limestone sand to balance ph levels.
https://wlos.com/news/local/forest-service-what-looks-like-dumping-is-actually-fighting-pollution
On the other hand, without the rainbows and browns, there would not have been any trout fishing at all in much of the area for the hundred+years it's taken for the land to heal from industrial logging and farming. And I totally agree that a lot of NC, TN, and GA outside the high-water-quality areas like the national park and wilderness areas would have no trout fishing if not for the stocked fish.
I love wild rainbows and browns, don't get me wrong. But it would sure be nice to see some more bigger creeks with native specks only where the water quality is there. I'd love to see some of those 14"-16" specks that used to be here in my grandpa's day before they killed the creeks and restocked them with bows.