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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:44 am, the temperature is 48.9 degrees.

It will be mostly sunny today with a high temperature in the middle 70’s. We have a low chance for rain earlier, then a greater chance tonight with a low temperature in the middle 40’s. Following a low chance for rain tomorrow morning, the day will be mostly sunny with a high in the middle 60’s, falling to the upper 30’s at night.

Little River is flowing at 209 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.04 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 279 cfs. The water temperature is 55.2 degrees this morning.

While Little River is flowing below normal, most streams in the Smokies that have USGS gauge sites are flowing at about normal. Water temperatures are good in the low to mid-elevations. Fishing for trout is good. They are actively feeding. Nymphs, dry flies and wet flies will work. A dry fly with a small bead head dropper is a good starting point.

Lowland rivers are flowing near normal. Fishing for trout is good where they are stocked. Smallmouth bass fishing has improved. Use nymphs or streamers for both trout and smallmouth bass.

TVA and the Corps are generating at most dams today but I found a couple of breaks in the schedules at Norris and South Holston Dams. There may be more. I did not check every schedule. I think we will see improvement in the tailwater fishing over the next few days. I hope so.

Lake fishing may be good. Or, it may be fair. It kind of depends on which lake you plan to fish and where on the lake you will be. The warmer the water is right now, the better the fishing will be for fly anglers fishing in the shallows. This is a good time of year to search with Wooly Buggers, weighted and fished slowly.

Soon, we will enjoy more topwater action on the lakes and lowland rivers. When the cicadas emerge, we’ll have even more fun.

I am working on a new category on our online store, “Popper Making Materials”. I may change the name of it, but for right now, that is what it is called. I started yesterday and will stay on it for a while. Making poppers from foam cylinders is one of my favorite things to do, preparing for fishing the lakes and rivers for smallmouth bass, bluegill, shellcrackers and largemouth bass.

I wrote a tutorial about making poppers using foam cylinders years ago. You can see it by CLICKING HERE. I have found, using rubber legs for the tail works great and the poppers are extremely durable. I also make them with flat faces, which saves time and seems to work as well as cupped faced poppers.

Renzetti shipped four vises to us yesterday and I am happy about that. They should arrive tomorrow. We are out of two models. We shipped one to a US soldier in the Pacific region Monday. I remember when we used to ship fly tying materials to a soldier in Iraq. I was a soldier once, and spent much of my time off fishing.

I hate being out of anything. Renzetti has been very busy, all of last year and so far, this year. We have been buying vises and tools from the Renzetti family for over 25 years. They are good people and good friends of mine. They make excellent products at their plant in Florida and they take good care of their customers, like us. I usually order from Renzetti on Mondays and get the order in the shop by Friday.

Well, get out and go fishing today. You have many options and we will hopefully have more soon.

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

Byron Begley
April 14, 2021

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com