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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:54 am, the temperature is 61.7 degrees.

Rain began to fall at about 3 am. At 5:40 am, the rain was torrential. Now, at 7 am, the rainfall amount has climbed to 1.78” since 3 am. The Knoxville Airport is reporting 1.74 inches has fallen there during the past 6 hours. The weather radar indicates more rain is headed our way and it may be heavy.

We should expect rain today, tonight and tomorrow morning. Today’s high temperature may reach 70 degrees. Then, cold air will move in tomorrow. We should see high temperatures in the mid-50’s with lows dipping to the 30’s or very low 40’s through the end of the week.

Little River is flowing at 181 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.98 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 127 cfs. The water temperature is 58.5 degrees this morning.

Don’t be fooled by the numbers above. Little River is rising quickly. Most streams in the Park are likely rising quickly too.

The National Weather Service has not issued a flash flood watch. Maybe they are having equipment problems. I’m here in Townsend, looking at local personal radar stations. I’ve seen and heard the heavy rain. I think we should be under a “Flash Flood Watch”. I’ll call it this time, just to be safe.

If you go fishing today, be careful. Watch for quickly rising water. If you see the water rising, get out of the stream. You may not know what has occurred upstream. A flash flood could happen fast.

The rain has stopped for now and the approaching thunderstorms I see on the radar may veer to our North. Or, they may not. I’m off today. I’m not going fishing.

Yesterday, in town, I noticed a sharp decline in traffic, compared to what we saw this past weekend. Some trees are in full color. Others have lost most of their leaves. It is still pretty out there. I think the leaf looking season is over. We’ll see what happens this coming weekend.

Fly Tyers Weekend (FTW) was awesome! It was a great success. Anthony Hipps, from Lexington, North Carolina plays a huge role in FTW. Anthony lines up all the fly tyers. He sent an e-mail to Dave and Daniel yesterday and copied me. In that e-mail, he told them, the fly tyers want them to hold the event again next year. I hope they do. It’s a lot of work. Those guys did a great job. All of the store staff and volunteers did a great job. The folks at Casting For Recovery sold food to fund their retreats. They did great.

This event would not be possible without the fly tyers. Sure, they love demonstrating their craft. They spent time and money to be here for us to enjoy. Thanks to all of you and your families. The attendees, including me, enjoyed you very much.

I was not involved in the planning. I kept writing here, before the event, that the tent would be large, 1,800 square feet. I found out later, the tent’s size was actually 3,200 square feet. I saw it when you did, Saturday morning.

Yesterday was my first day off since August. I had a doctor appointment first. I bragged to Dr. John that I has lost 23 pounds since I saw him last, 4 months ago. He told me he was jealous.

After that, I went tractor shopping. Ten acres of this property is wooded. Trees have fallen. It needs to be cleaned up. That could take a few years. We need a sub-compact tractor with a front end loader. I looked at John Deere, Kubota and Massey Ferguson. Today or tomorrow, I will look at Mehindra. The tractor has to be small enough to go through the forest. The loader will hold up fallen trees so they can be cut with a chain saw safely. The logs will be put in the loader and taken out of the forest.

As cheap as I am, I may put it off. I spend a lot of time on large purchases, trying to define “need” from “want”. That is why I still drive my Suburban, that I bought new, 17 years ago. It has low mileage, it is in good shape and it has been well taken care of. New ones cost $65,000. Just typing those numbers makes me like mine even more.

Our website went down yesterday. That is rare. Daniel and Thom, our host, got it up quickly when they found it out it was down. We hate it when that happens.

It isn’t raining. The thunderstorms are still tracking just north of us. Maybe the worst is over. Don’t count on that. Little River is rising quickly. The “Fishing Gauge” is still indicating “Good”. I would not consider that credible if I were you.

Now, I hear thunder.

I sprayed WD-40 on the Fishing Gauge and the needle dropped to "Slow". Believe me, you don't need to be out there.

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

Byron Begley
November 7, 2017

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com