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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:47 am, the temperature is 36.5 degrees.

Heavy rain fell in the area yesterday. We got 1.5 to 1.8 inches in Townsend at two personal weather stations. I noticed one in Greenville, Tennessee that reported almost 3 inches. The Knoxville Airport reports 1.11 inches fell there.

It will be clear today and very cool, with a high in the low to middle 40’s, falling to the low 20’s tonight. Tomorrow will be slightly warmer during the day but much colder at night, with a low in the upper 20’s. Saturday will be sunny and warmer with a high around 60 and a low in the middle 30’s. Sunday’s high will be in the middle 60’s with a low in the low 40’s.

Little River is flowing at 1,430 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 3.89 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 393 cfs. The water temperature is 49.6 degrees this morning. The river is receding.

Little Pigeon River is flowing at 3,760 cfs, 4.90 feet, compared to median flow of 754 cfs for this date.

Oconaluftee River is flowing at 1,890 cfs, 3.42 feet, compared to median flow of 673 cfs.

Tellico River is flowing at 1,730 cfs, 4.70 feet, which compares to median flow of 420 cfs.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 484 cfs, 3.68 feet, compared to median flow of 147 cfs.

Most streams in the Smokies are flowing considerably higher than normal, too high to safely wade and fish and some are flowing at record flows for this date. They are all slowly receding.

Water temperatures are cool this morning. The temperatures will fall over the next couple of days. I don’t expect the water will be warm enough to be in the trout’s preferred temperature range for a few days.

Some streams may be fishable this weekend. It is hard to say which or when. The ground is saturated so streams will be slow to recede. We will learn more as we get closer to the weekend.

Lowland rivers exiting the mountains are flowing very high.

TVA and the Corps will be generating all day at every dam I checked. They are trying to lower the lakes to create more water storage capacity, without flooding the primary rivers downstream. They are spilling and generating at the dams on the Tennessee River and probably on the Cumberland River as well.  

Fishing news is not good today. Though this year started dry, that is not the case now. Rainfall has likely surpassed normal in the Tennessee Valley for the year.

So, we wait for lower and warmer water.

It will be dry for several days. We won’t see rain again until later next week. And, it will be much warmer next week with highs reaching the 70’s beginning Monday.

We are busy at the shop most days, despite the poor fishing conditions. Being in the fly fishing business for 26 years, I have watched the weather forecasts every day because our sport and business is weather dependent.

Before we had internet access to live stream conditions, I would drive to the Townsend USGS gauge, look at the gauge reading and take the water temperature to report to you. We had a table that converted the gauge height to cfs and I reported both to you during the early days of this fishing report.

Before moving here 30 years ago, I lived in Nashville and would drive to the Smokies to fish. I never knew what to expect. Fishing conditions were good sometimes, and not good other times. Now we have that information at our fingertips. Technology has certainly helped fly anglers plan trips.

I also remember when we would call on the phone and listen to a recording, giving us the generation schedules at the dams. That recording was long because it listed the schedules at each dam. When it got to the dam you were interested in, you had to frantically write down the schedule. If we made a mistake or did not clearly hear the schedule, we had to call back and listen to the recording again. Before that, we called and talked to a real person and I think that person actually worked at the dam we were interested in. That was a long time ago.

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

Byron Begley
April 1, 2021    

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com