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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:49 am, the temperature outside is 15.3 degrees.

Today will be warmer, with a high in the mid-30’s. Expect tonight’s low to be in the mid-teens. Tomorrow will be colder, with a high in the low to mid 20’s, dipping to single digits tomorrow night. Expect the same Friday. It will warm some this weekend. It will be much warmer next week. Rain is predicted.

Little River is flowing at 212 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.07 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 361 cfs. The water temperature is 32 degrees.

That is the lowest number that can be recorded at the gauge site. It really doesn’t matter to fishermen. When the water is that cold, trout will not be active at all. Fishing is slow. Falling in would be a disaster. Don’t go.

It looks like most of the roads in Great Smoky Mountains National Park are open. Watch for ice and snow.

Be on the lookout for frozen waterfalls. We do not see that often here. WBIR posted a photo with a short story on Bald River Falls in the Cherokee National Forest. You can see it by CLICKING HERE. That spectacular waterfall is frozen. I’ve seen it frozen like that before. I can’t remember when or why I was there, but I remember the scene vividly. I think we were staying at Walter’s cabin.

I drove to the shop yesterday, to photograph some flies to be added to our online store. When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw some guys pulling tackle out of one truck and putting it into another. That is a common sight. Two anglers meet at the shop, and leave one vehicle there, to go fishing in the other.

But, yesterday? Someone went fishing in the Smokies yesterday. They probably had a great time but I doubt if they caught many fish. You don’t have to catch fish to enjoy fishing with friends. I know. I’ve done it many times before.

Business is slow at the shop. I did see some customers while I was there. I also saw mail order activity yesterday too. People are at least thinking about fly fishing, and gearing up for Spring. Spring may not be that far off. Spring fishing has begun 6 weeks after the new year in the Smoky Mountains. This may be another one of those years.

Paula and I spent the New Year holiday in Kentucky. We married off one of our best friends, Mouse, Friday night. He married a wonderful woman, Loreena. Now, she is our friend. Then we spent the rest of the time with Frank and Freida. Mouse, Loreena, PW and Hazel joined us New Years Eve. If you think it was cold here, you should have been in Kentucky. We had a great time as usual.

We talked about fly fishing. Frank showed me some flies he has been tying. They looked great. We planned fishing trips for this year. Several months ago, we booked a house in Florida for this coming Spring.

We drove to Lexington, and browsed around in the Cabelas store. That is always fun. There, we ran into our buddy Brad Redmon. Brad guides fly fishermen on Hatchery Creek.

When we got home from the trip, the birds were going crazy. I had not been here to feed them. One feeder still had some seed. Most of the birds eat seed I throw out on the ground, several times each day.

Wild turkeys come into the area and scarf up every seed, even those tiny millet seeds. To keep them away, I throw corn out on our driveways, away from the bird feeding space behind the house. That works fairly well.

We pulled into the carport and started unloading Paula’s car. A few minutes later, I looked out, and there were about 42 turkeys standing in the forest, staring at our house. Where the heck is he?

I filled a 2-gallon bucket with corn, and walked down the upper driveway. They all ran toward me. As I threw out corn, they were scarfing it up, sometimes as close as ten feet from me. The turkeys were running around bumping into each other and almost bumping into me. If I had thrown out 4 gallons of corn, they would have eaten it all. When they finished eating, they left. Then I fed the other birds.

It is always good to be home.

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

Byron Begley
January 3, 2017

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com