A renovation expected to begin next year at the 67-year-old Bobby N. Setzer Fish Hatchery in Brevard will diminish upcoming trout stockings in local rivers by two-thirds. However, the effect that renovation could have on tourism and businesses that rely on anglers is difficult to determine.
In 2017, the county’s tourism board launched the Transylvania Always initiative, which has since invested thousands of occupancy tax dollars into everything from hiking trail restoration to French Broad River cleanup. “I really don’t know of anywhere else, particularly anywhere else of our small size, that is doing anything similar,” says Clark Lovelace, the TCT’s executive director.
