If you do not see today’s Fishing Report, please refresh your browser to empty your cache.

Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:26 am, the temperature outside is 58.6 degrees. This is two mornings in a row, with early temperatures below 60 degrees. It really does feel like Fall. This is August!

Expect high temperatures today of 84 degrees in Townsend, 78 at Elkmont, 74 at Newfound Gap and 62 degrees at Mount LeConte.

Cool days and nights will continue for a while. We may not have lows in the 50’s each morning, but we can expect low 60’s. Daytime highs are predicted to be in the low to mid-80’s through August 15th. That is a long term forecast so it is subject to change.

It will likely rain Friday afternoon and Friday night. We may not see rain Saturday or Sunday, but after that, the chances for rain are better than 50% every day through the two-week period.

Little River is flowing low at 65.9 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.52 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 125 cfs. The water temperature is 67.8 degrees this morning, in the low elevation of the river in the Park.

I was at the shop yesterday evening when guides Rob Fightmaster and David Knapp returned from their guided trips. Rob said fishing was good, even though the water is low. I didn’t ask David but I assume he had the same result. These guys are professionals. It’s their job to determine what works for their clients when conditions are not perfect.

When the rain begins, along with these cool temperatures, I think fishing will be very good for at least the next two weeks. I hope this plays out like the weather forecasters believe it will, for now.

If you go, I would use Yellow Sally Stonefly patterns or terrestrials for your dry fly. I would use a Green Weenie below the surface. Many other flies my work just as well. The trout are hungry and seeking food.

The challenge is casting to the trout, and getting a good drift, without spooking them. That is not easy in low water conditions. I try to fish the choppy water and shaded areas of streams when the water is low.

I talked to a customer yesterday, who floated with guide Josh Pfeiffer on a tailwater for smallmouth bass last week. He told me they boated over 50 smallies. That is a good day. Smallmouth bass fishing on the tailwaters is very good, like it usually is in July and August. These fish are taking top water flies, big nymphs and streamers.

It is going to be partly cloudy, partly sunny, or mostly cloudy every day through the weekend. We all love conditions like that.

David and I talked about that big brown trout he caught on a mouse pattern, on the Caney Fork. David guides on that river, but on this day, he was fishing with our friend Brandon Bailes. Brandon is a fly tying innovator and an excellent angler from Alabama.

David excluded now, we were all talking about the fact that we’ve never caught a fish on a mouse pattern. Why is that? I’ll tell you why. We never tried or didn’t try hard. I suppose we forget about mice. We think about insects, other fish, amphibians and crustaceans. We don’t think about mammals.

Brandon and David do. Brandon has been fishing with mouse patterns for two years at least. He caught brook trout using a mouse fly on Lynn Camp Prong.

Paula and I are going fly fishing on a lake tomorrow. I’m going to put some mammal patterns in my boat box. I’ve got some somewhere. That even sounds odd, doesn’t it?

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

Byron Begley
August 1, 2017

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com