Who regulates fishing in Tennessee?

The TWRA sets and enforces Tennessee fishing regulations. Licenses are sold through TWRA.

How many fish species are regulated in Tennessee?

fishid currently tracks 156 distinct species/aggregates with 2,303 rules across freshwater, sourced from TWRA.

What is the bag limit for Largemouth Bass in Tennessee?

Bag limits and size restrictions for Largemouth Bass vary by zone and season. See the dedicated Largemouth Bass page for current rules verified 2026-05-08.

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Regulations

Tennessee Fishing Regulations 2026

Name: Tennessee fishing regulations dataset
Creator: TWRA
Published: 2026-05-08T11:10:03.682813+00:00
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Tennessee fishing is regulated by the TWRA. As of 2026-05-08, fishid tracks 2,303 current rules covering 10 top-targeted species across freshwater waters.

Source: TWRA · Buy a license · Verified 2026-05-08

Top species (2026)

Tap a species below to see Tennessee-specific seasons, size limits, slot limits, and gear restrictions, pulled directly from TWRA's current published rules and verified within the last few hours.

Famous Tennessee waters

Per-waterbody rule pages for the most-searched fishing destinations in Tennessee. Multi-state lakes link to a single cross-state page that consolidates each agency's rules.

How Tennessee fishing regulations work

TWRA publishes the binding regulations covering recreational fishing in Tennessee. Rules vary by water body, species, season, and zone, and they change mid-season more often than most anglers expect. fishid mirrors the published source pages and PDFs nightly, normalizes the rules into structured data (bag limits, size minimums, slots, season start/end, gear restrictions, and status), then re-verifies against the source.

For most species in Tennessee, you'll want to check four things before keeping a fish: open season (year-round vs. spring/fall windows), size limit (minimum and any maximum), slot limit (a permitted size range with everything outside released), and daily bag. Many waters layer additional restrictions on gear, hook type, or live-bait use.

The species cards above link to the rule tables we maintain for each fishery. Largemouth Bass, Trout, Smallmouth Bass, and Walleye are the most-rule-dense fisheries in Tennessee's data.

Reference only. Regulations change frequently, often mid-season. Always confirm with TWRA before keeping a catch. The CatchRules iOS app reflects the same data, with offline access and species identification.

Official sources cited

Every rule on this page traces back to one of these official TWRA pages or PDFs.

Last verified: 2026-05-08. fishid re-crawls source pages nightly and re-verifies rules against TWRA's published content.