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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:52 am, the temperature outside is 40.3 degrees.

High wind downed trees or limbs, causing a power outage in parts of Townsend yesterday. Power at our home ceased for a while. I took a nap. The outage lasted over 2 hours. Almost three quarters of an inch of rain fell in town. All roads in Great Smoky Mountains National Park are open except US Highway 441/Newfound Gap Road. Newfound Gap road is closed due to freezing conditions.

Road construction between Townsend and Cades Cove will hamper traffic flow on weekdays for a while. The resurfacing crews are not working on weekends, so traffic flow will be normal then.

The National Weather Service is reporting the chance for snow showers this morning, then changing to rain after 9 am. That does not seem likely since the temperature is 40 degrees right now.

Today will be chilly, with a high temperature in the low 40’s. We are under a freeze warning tonight. Tomorrow will be warm again, with a high in the mid-60’s and a low in the low 50’s. Expect highs in the 70’s Wednesday.

Little River is flowing at 513 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.67 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 281 cfs. The water temperature is 51.4 degrees this morning.

Flows are a little high. The streams are swift in some areas. They will recede today, to the high side of good, soon.

The water temperature is falling and that will continue until tomorrow.

Fishing may be fair today and it could be slow tomorrow morning, due to the cooling water temperatures. Fishing will be good again at least by Wednesday or before. Right now, the water temperatures are fine in the lower elevations of the Smoky Mountains.

Nymphs will probably work best today and tomorrow. Add extra weight and fish them deep, near the streambed. I would use standard nymph patterns, specifically Pheasant Tail, Prince, Hare’s Ear or Tellico patterns. Many other nymphs will work as well.

You may catch trout on dry flies. You may see aquatic insect adults on the water. Try dry flies if you prefer, but be willing to switch back to nymphs if that does not work. Many anglers who are visiting the shop are using different sizes of the Parachute Adams dry flies, and they have been working.

There will be times today, when TVA will not be generating at Norris and Cherokee dams. Look at the TVA flows, from the links below, to determine if you can work with their schedule today.

More fly fishing anglers, and those who have never fly fished before, are trying tenkara. Tenkara is the most simplified method of fly fishing. Tenkara was born in Japan. Tenkara rods are long, but collapse into a short package. There is no reel, just a long rod, short fly line, leader, and a fly. The newest Tenkara USA rod we sell, was just introduced April 5th. The rod’s pack length is just 15”.

Customers started asking us about tenkara a few years ago. Most of the people I talked to were backpackers. I didn’t realize at the time, tenkara would become so popular. Daniel brought Tenkara USA rods and tackle into our store last year. We sold and still sell a lot of them. I was amazed.

This morning, I found an online magazine called Tenkara Angler. You can see the Spring issue by CLICKING HERE. Blow it up to full screen. It looks great. I plan to read each page later today. Though most articles and beautiful photography describe and showcase trout, I found one article devoted to smallmouth bass. I saw some carp photos too.

I bought a Tenkara USA fly rod last year. I keep it rigged and in our boat, for lake fishing. I have not used it much, but I plan to this year. The first time I did use it, I caught one of the largest bluegill I’ve caught in my life. Fighting that fish and trying to land it using a 13’ tenkara rod was great fun.

If you are interested, check out the Tenkara Department on our online store by CLICKING HERE. There are several great videos there for you to watch. Tenkara is not expensive to get into. You might enjoy learning to fly fish using tenkara tackle.

It is daybreak. I am looking out my home office window into the forest. The wind is calm and there is no snow falling.

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

Byron Begley
April 16, 2018

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com