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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 75.7 degrees.
It is breezy this morning. Today and tomorrow will be partly sunny with a high temperature in the low 80’s. Showers are likely Sunday morning with a high temperature in the mid 70’s. the afternoon will be cloudy and windy.
Little River is flowing at 928 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 3.26 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 334 cfs. The water temperature is 54.5 degrees this morning.
All streams in the Smokies that have USGS gauges are still flowing high though they are receding. Many streams are too high to safely wade. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is closed temporarily, at least until April 6th.
The lowland rivers are still flowing high but they are receding.
TVA and the Corps of Engineers have scheduled generation all day at most dams in our region.
Fly fishing on the lakes will improve this weekend as the surface temperatures warm. I would plan on using streamers. It may be windy, so pick your times and fish sheltered water from your boat, kayak or canoe. Smallmouth bass are moving into shallower water to spawn.
This time of the year, a heavily weighted Wooly Bugger is my favorite fly for smallmouth bass. I tie mine on a #2 or larger hook, and wrap the shank with about 20 wraps of .20 wire for weight. I prefer jig hooks because I think they are less likely to snag the bottom. I cast them to the rocky banks, let the fly sink and slowly retrieve. If you are not getting strikes, vary your retrieve.
Sometimes, smallmouth bass will follow your fly almost to the boat. I hook a lot of them when I’m about to make another cast. So, it often helps to retrieve faster, at the end of your retrieve before making the next cast. Sometimes that triggers a strike.
Great Smoky Mountains is surrounded on three sides by huge National Forests. The forests in Tennessee and North Carolina have many trout streams. As far as I know, none of the National Forests in our area are closed. You may want to check them out.
We are still operating the shop as “curbside service” only. Call ahead or from our parking lot to talk to us. We can pick items you need to fish and deliver them to the table on our front porch. We have a credit card terminal set up on the porch for your use.
Most of our customers are calling for mail order service or using our online store. We are shipping many orders every day.
I will be ordering more fly tying materials today from Umpqua, Hareline Dubbin and Natures Spirit. I placed a large order earlier this week with Wapsi. Our plan is to keep our store stocked completely with fly tying materials and tools. Many customers are at home. We can tell, many are tying flies.
Tomorrow, Daniel and I will begin adding fly tying materials and tools to our online store. This is a project we have thought about for a long time. It will be a huge project. We moved it to our top three priorities day before yesterday. In the past, we have been kicking the can down the road. Now is the time for action.
One problem we have always had in the fly tying department is spotty fulfillment from our vendors because of spotty fulfillment from their suppliers. Think about this, companies that tie and sell flies buy large quantities of materials and hooks, based on the fly orders they receive for the coming year. They are tying flies to be sold around the world.
Though most flies are tied overseas, in huge quantities, by hand, the supply chain is charged with keeping the fly companies in full production. The fly tying vendors we work with try hard to keep us and other fly shops supplied. They sometimes have trouble with their supply chains, which affects fly shops.
High quality dry fly hackle can be almost impossible to get at times. It takes a year to grow a rooster for harvest. Demand for prime dry fly hackle has been very high over the past few years.
Synthetic materials seem to be always in stock. At times, all hook companies are at full stock. There are times when some of them are not.
I place fly tying orders almost every week from Wapsi and less often from other suppliers. The quantity of small items in the orders are always in the hundreds. Because of the high quantity of small items, we never know what we will receive in an order until it arrives a week later. Nothing in the fly tying business is backordered. That would create a bookkeeping nightmare for us and our suppliers.
That may change now. I don’t know what to expect. My guess is, fly tying material fulfillment will improve for fly shops like ours. We are counting on that happening.
Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.
Byron Begley
March 27, 2020
Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com |
