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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:55 am, the temperature outside is 33.4 degrees.
Today will be sunny and chilly with a high temperature in the low 40’s, falling to the mid-20’s tonight. Saturday will be sunny and warmer, with a high in the low 50’s falling to the low to mid-30’s at night.
Little River is flowing at 2,190 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 4.78 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 300 cfs. The river is receding quickly. Yesterday, the river peaked at over 7 feet or close to 6,000 cfs. Last week, on Thursday, the river rose to 11.33 feet.
The water temperature chart has been temporarily removed from the Little River Townsend USGS page. No water temperature data is being transmitted. A temperature probe and pipe run from the small structure at the gauge site, out into the river. They are attached to the river bed. Evidently, the probe was damaged or possibly washed out in last week’s flood. Since then, the water has been too high to repair or replace the probe. I hope we get that back soon.
Little Pigeon River is flowing at 4,690 cfs, 5.48 feet, compared to median flow of 649 cfs at the Sevierville gauge. The river is receding rapidly.
Oconaluftee River is flowing at 3,620 cfs, 4.76 feet, which compares to median flow of 546 cfs. The river is receding.
Tellico River is receding very quickly, flowing currently at 2,160 cfs, 5.49 feet, compared to median flow for this date of 354 cfs. During last week’s flood, the river peaked at 12.38 feet.
Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 961 cfs, 4.51 feet, compared to median flow of 134 cfs.
Most streams in the Smokies are flowing too high to safely wade and fish.
US Highway 441 from Sugarlands to Cherokee is closed due to icing on the road.
TVA and the Corps are generating today at most dams nearby. There are breaks in the flows at some dams, especially in upper East Tennessee. Refer to the TVA schedules using the links below to see if you can work with the flows on some tailwaters.
We are barely past 6 weeks this year. At the Knoxville Airport, the rainfall total is 16.61 inches for the period. That equates to 2.77 inches of precipitation per week. Normal rainfall for the year through this date is 6.28 inches.
To put this into a different impressive perspective, 2018 was the wettest year on record in the Tennessee Valley according to TVA. Rainfall at this point was 6.74 inches during the period in that year.
The second wettest year on record was last year. At this point rainfall was 8.00 inches at the airport in 2019. The heavy rain came later in February last year. And, we had a “flash drought” during the year. Without the short term drought, last year would probably have been the wettest year on record.
All that really means is, so far, we have had a heck of a lot of rain during a short time.
The good news is, no heavy rain is predicted so far, through the end of February.
Plan on being at the shop Saturday, when Jon Oody and Matt Dixon will be conducting free fly tying demonstrations between 10 am and 2 pm. All you have to do is show up. These guys are both very talented anglers and fly tyers. Jon is a professional guide. Though he fishes for anything that swims, what I know about him are his skills for catching big stripers in the lakes and rivers. Saturday will be a very interesting day at the shop.
Happy Valentine Day everyone!
Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.
Byron Begley
February 14, 2020
Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com |