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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:19 am, the temperature outside is 50.7 degrees.

The rain started falling late yesterday. It rained all night. So far, 1.01” of rain has been recorded at a personal weather station in Townsend. The Knoxville Airport reports .64” of rain has fallen since yesterday afternoon.

Today will be cool, with the high temperature being what we see now. More light rain is predicted today, mainly before 8 am. Additional rainfall of 1/10” to a quarter of an inch is predicted.

Tonight will be cold, with temperatures dipping into the mid to upper-20’s. Snow is possible tonight. Sunday will be sunny, after a morning frost. The high temperature tomorrow is predicted to be 55 degrees.

Little River is flowing at 496 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.64 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 371 cfs. The water temperature is 50.4 degrees.

It seems Mother Nature has thrown a kink into our fishing for another weekend. The water temperature is fine in the low elevations right now. They problem today will be “high water” and possibly stained water in some Smoky Mountain streams.

Little River is rising quickly. The flow gauge is now reading 2.7 feet, higher than the reading taken earlier. It looks like the river will continue to rise, before cresting. I don’t know how high that number will be. There is no doubt, it will be higher than it is now. Probably, quite a bit higher.

The Little Pigeon River is rising fast. The same is true at Abrams Creek. It looks like Cataloochee Creek has crested, for now.

If you are traveling a long distance to fish here this morning, you might want to reconsider.

If you fish today, be careful wading. The streams are swift. You may find stained water in the stream you intend to fish. Stay close to the bank in shallow water, and cast weighted nymphs.

Watch the USGS flow gauges. The links are below this report. A stream gauge reading of 2.5 feet or below, is considered on the high side of good in Little River.

TOMORROW: I am not good at predicting water temperatures, after all of these years. Air temperatures will dip to the mid-20’s tonight, in the valley. It is usually colder than that in the high elevations, unless we have a rare temperature inversion. There is no doubt in my mind, that the water temperatures will fall significantly overnight. I expect fishing will be slow tomorrow morning, and maybe all day.

I hate writing fishing reports like this one.

Check the predicted flows below Cherokee Dam on the Holston River. Maybe you can make it work for you today and tomorrow.

I was hoping Tellico River might be an option today. Right now, the river is rising and is flowing at above median flow.

I would keep an eye on the flow gauges today. Look at the water temperature on the Little River Gauge site tomorrow morning. If Little River is flowing around 2.5 feet tomorrow, fishing may be an option. If the water temperature is in the upper 40’s, fishing will be fair. Fishing will be slow if the temperature is in the lower 40’s in the morning, but the water may warm some later in the day.

Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.

Byron Begley
April 7, 2018  

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com