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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:14 am, the temperature outside is 36.5 degrees.
Little River is flowing at 421 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.49 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 355 cfs. The water temperature is 48.7 degrees and falling.
Today and tomorrow will be sunny and warmer, with a highs around 70 degrees and lows in the high 40’s to 50 degrees tomorrow night. Sunday will be partly sunny with a low chance for showers and possibly thunderstorms. Sunday’s high temperature will be in the low 70’s.
Streams in the mountains are receding. Water temperatures are cooler than they have been recently though they will be rising over the weekend.
The Park is still closed to all visitors, whether on foot or by vehicle. The Park will remain closed through April.
I believe Cherokee National Forest is open. I have heard it has been crowded with visitors due to Great Smoky Mountains being closed.
Lowland rivers are receding. The water is cool. Smallmouth bass and trout fishing is probably fair. We will hopefully see fishing improve in the lowland rivers this weekend.
I checked most of our tailwater generation schedules this morning and did not see any wade fishing opportunities.
Our Governor has made it mandatory to stay at home except for essential travel. Our store has been closed to customers since mid-March. Under the current executive order, we are in compliance as long as there are no more than 10 people in our building and we are keeping a safe distance from each other. Usually, there are only three or four of us working on the same day at this point.
We have been offering curbside service and mail order. We are continuing to do that with some modification in our interaction with customers, for everyone’s best interest.
Starting today, we will not be interacting with customers on our front porch, even at a safe distance. The credit card terminal that was outside, will not be available for use.
Instead, we will be taking orders over the phone in advance. We will be asking for your credit card information that we will enter through our secure payment gateway, as we do with all orders that are called in. You can pick up your order on the porch when you arrive, but the transaction will be complete before we deliver it to the porch.
We will call you to let you know your order is ready for pickup. When you arrive, call us from your vehicle. We will deliver the order to the porch. Once we are back inside, you can walk to the porch and pick up your order.
Of course, you can call us or buy online and we will mail your order to you, with no charge for shipping. That is what most customers are doing now.
We all appreciate your support very much. We feel blessed you care about our future. Thanks to you and your patronage, for pickup or shipping, we are able to stay in business without being open to the public, while still complying with our Governor’s mandates.
I appreciate our staff’s willingness to continue working through this. Nobody has been laid off. When we are not filling orders for you, we are cleaning and sanitizing the shop.
Our store hours will remain 9:00 am until 4:00 pm, seven days.
We are expanding our online store. Fly tying materials are being added. New flies and gear will be added. Daniel and I will be working together on that project. He is doing the bookkeeping. We will continue to stock items that have been sold. Everyone is taking and filling orders for customers.
Mail order has been an essential part of our service and success for almost 25 years. We want to improve and grow that part of our business now and for the long term.
We are not a “city shop”. Customers either drive long distances, fairly long distances, some live here, while many are visitors. We do not have many visitors now. The Park is closed. When it re-opens, our business model will probably change again.
We are looking forward to the day you can come back in our store. That will be a day to remember.
Stay safe and thank you for being here with us.
Byron Begley
April 3, 2020
Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com |