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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 6:18 am, the temperature outside is 56.5 degrees.

Today will be another beautiful one, with sun and a high near 80 degrees. Little to no rain is expected until Sunday. It will become warmer as the week rolls on, creeping to the mid-80’s or a little warmer by Saturday.

Little River is flowing at 307 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.25 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 159 cfs. The water temperature is 61.3 degrees this morning.

If you are visiting the Smoky Mountains to fish this week, and I know many are, you picked a good one. All streams in the Park that have flow gauges are receding. What we have now are normal early Spring flows. Fishing should be good to excellent this week. Fishing conditions today look to be awesome.

I spent some time at the shop yesterday, photographing gear for our online store in the studio. I did talk to some customers. Most were going fishing in the Park. Some were local and some were from other states.

One lady, who is a regular customer and an experienced Smokies angler was going. I told her, “You will catch them hand over fist”. She replied, “They will probably slay me”. You never know for sure. That is one reason we love fishing so much.

Trout will be taking dry flies or nymphs. I would use Yellow Sally Stonefly patterns, such as a Yellow Neversink Caddis, Yellow Stimulator, Yellow Rob’s Hellbender, Yellow Parachute Adams, Yellow Elk Hair Caddis, or yellow anything. Trout in the Smokies love yellow, especially this time of the year.

Terrestrials will work too. Use one of the many foam black beetle patterns. Try both Green and Pink Weenies.

You should do well.

TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and Brookfield Energy are still flushing water through the sluice gates or spilling through the flood gates at the dams. They are slowly lowering the water in the lakes back to Summer pool. This does not bode well for our tailwater fisheries.

The good news is, some dams have throttled back or there are plans to do that over the next few days. I added Fontana Dam to our TVA and Brookfield list below, day before yesterday. I’ve been watching Fontana closely, since I like to fish the Little Tennessee lakes. They have already cut back the flows somewhat at Fontana.

I don’t know what the fishing is like right now on the lakes. I have not been. I hope to go soon. The lakes are fairly high right now.

The lowland rivers should be fishing well for smallmouth bass. Try poppers or foam floating flies. Fishing will be best early or late, when the sun is off the water.

I noticed US Geological Survey (USGS) folks calibrated the year-old Abrams Creek gauge yesterday. That gauge is located at the large Spring where the creek emerges from underground, upstream from the Cades Cove Loop Road crossing. That gauge may be temporary due to lack of funding. You can view the USGS Abrams Creek page by clicking the link below.

That gauge was installed to help USGS monitor the caves they are surveying in Dry Valley, where we live. I got to know one of the guys this Spring. They work out of the Nashville Field Office. I see their trucks near our barn occasionally. They held a seminar in our field in April. To reach one of the caves, they park in that field. To reach another, they park on our private road on our neighbor’s property.

Jack and Donna joined many people in Cades Cove for Decoration Day this weekend. They decorate the graves of their ancestors every year, at this time. Jack went to the Cove yesterday to pick up their flowers and stopped by our house on the way home. He said he has never seen so many bears in the Cove. I think he said he counted 24. It took him two or three hours to get to the cemetery, then drive out on Rich Mountain Road. The holdup was, “Bear Jams”.

One person told Jack they were at a standstill because there was a “wildcat” near the road. Jack saw the animal. It was a raccoon. A bobcat would not stand still for tourists to photograph. A bobcat would not be within sight of people traveling around the loop road. I have only seen two, and they could have been the same cat, around our house during the past 25 years.

A lot of people have drowned around here this Spring. Another person drowned on Norris Lake yesterday. This has been a bad year for that. If you go boating, fishing or swimming in our area lakes and rivers, use caution, especially during high water events, like we have had.

I noticed last night, the fireflies are very active at our house.

This will be a good fishing day in the Park. Go if you can.

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

Byron Begley
June 5, 2018

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com