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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 13.8 degrees.

Today will be sunny and cold. Tonight will be very cold again. A warmup is coming tomorrow, through Wednesday with rain expected. Winter weather will return Thursday and Friday, with snow being a possibility.

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PREDICTED HIGHS AND LOWS TODAY

Little River is flowing at 965 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 3.31 feet on the gauge near Townsend. Median flow for this date is 290 cfs. The water temperature is 39.0 degrees this morning.

At the Sevierville gauge, Little Pigeon River is flowing at 1,680 cfs or 3.44 feet, compared to median flow of 514 for this date.

At the Birdtown gauge, Oconaluftee River is flowing at 1,280 cfs, 2.84 feet, which compares to median flow of 556 cfs. The water temperature is 36.1 degrees.

Tellico River is flowing at 992 cfs, 3.18 feet, compared to median flow of 291 cfs.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 212 cfs, 2.98 feet, compared to median flow of 116 cfs. The water temperature is 34.0 degrees.

All water temperatures are falling right now.

Fishing will be slow today, due to the cold water conditions. The steams are also flowing very high. I would not wade today. The currents are strong. Wind chill factors in the Smokies will be very low. If you got wet, you could be in danger from hypothermia.

Most roads in the Park are open, except US Highway 441 (Newfound Gap Road).

The Little River Chapter of Trout Unlimited will meet tomorrow night (January 22nd) at Barley’s Restaurant in downtown Maryville. Social hour starts at 6 pm, and the meeting begins at 7 pm. I will be giving the program, describing how we founded the Chapter. I actually started working on this 27 years ago and we were chartered 26 years ago. According to the Park, we were the first TU Chapter to work as partners with a National Park.

Matt Kulp was supposed to give the program. He is the head fisheries biologist at the Park. He is furloughed and cannot represent the Park during this time.

I remember when Matt was in college and working as an intern with the Smokies fisheries team during the Summers. Matt earned his master degree in fisheries biology at Penn State. He took Bart Carter’s job, when Bart was hired by TWRA. Bart is head of the fisheries department with TWRA for our region. Both of these guys are doing a great job and we have been friends for twenty some odd years.

You can visit the Little River Chapter of Trout Unlimited website by CLICKING HERE.

Two fine young men and excellent fly tyers will be demonstrating at the shop Saturday. They are Will Davis of Knoxville and Tradd Little from Greenville, South Carolina. They will be demonstrating and talking about fly fishing between 10 am and 2 pm. This event is free. All you have to do is show up. They will be set up at tables, with chairs for you, at two different locations in the shop. They will be tying simultaneously so you can be with one of them for a while, then move to the other later.

You can learn more about Will and Tradd, while seeing our Free Saturday Tying Demo schedule by CLICKING HERE.

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

Byron Begley
January 21, 2019

Fly Tying Classes January, February and March 2019 Taught by Walter Babb and Brian Courtney Beginner to Advanced CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com