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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:23 am, the temperature outside is a very warm 52.2 degrees.
What we have now will be the high temperature today. A cold front will move in this morning, bringing breezy conditions. Tonight’s low will dip to about 30 degrees. We have a slight chance for light rain this afternoon and light snow tonight. Tomorrow will be cooler and tomorrow night will be cold. Warmer air arrives for the weekend.
Little River is flowing at 159 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.89 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 294 cfs. The water temperature is 45.1 degrees.
Fishing will be better today, in the Smokies, than it has in several days. It’ won’t be great, just better. Trout become somewhat active at the current water temperature of 45 degrees that you will find in the lower elevations. We will see the water temperatures fall tonight and tomorrow night, then warm further by the weekend.
If you go, use nymphs, weighted. Get them down. Always be on the lookout for blue wing olives on the water. That could happen. I believe you should expect fairly slow fishing at least until the weekend. Fishing may improve then.
As far as I know, most roads are open in the Park. The the government shutdown ended yesterday. Furloughed Park employees should be back to work today. The Park Roads Twitter page has not been updated since January 19th. So, right now, we do not know the status of the roads in the Park. I think the Twitter page will be updated today. CLICK HERE to view the page and see the current road status later this morning.
Rainfall for the month is 2” below normal, already. You can see Little River is flowing way below normal. Normal is high this time of year. Much of the country is abnormally dry or listed as being in a drought. I don’t see any significant rain in the long term forecast, through early February here. CLICK HERE to see the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor. The Smokies are shown as being “abnormally dry”. It is much worse in other areas. I hope this changes soon.
The long term forecast through early February, indicates we’ll have some warm days, but colder weather too. I don’t expect Spring fishing to begin in early February. Will it happen in mid-February? It did last year. It has in other recent years.
What we are looking for is sustained water temperatures near 50 degrees. When the water gets close to that number, and stays near that number for a few days, the bug start hatching and the trout begin feeding on top.
When that happens, everyone is happy. I get to write exciting fishing reports for a change. It is not much fun writing a daily fishing report when fishing is dreadfully slow. I’m ready for something new. I know you are too. Thank you for reading this report.
Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.
Byron Begley
January 23, 2018 Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com |
