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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 7:05 am, the temperature outside is 42 degrees.

We will have three sunny and warm days in a row. The high temperature today is predicted to be 76 degrees with 79 and 78 for the highs Tuesday and Wednesday. We may get some rain Thursday and Friday. Thunderstorms are likely Thursday night.

Little River is flowing at 884 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 3.22 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 251 cfs. The water temperature is 52.3 degrees this morning. Many anglers feel a gauge reading like we have this morning is too high to wade and fish. Others like the higher flows.

Little Pigeon River is still flowing high at 1,830 cfs, 3.55 feet, compared to median flow of 493 cfs.

Oconaluftee River is flowing at 1,760 or 3.33 feet at the Birdtown gauge. Median flow is 598 cfs. The water temperature is 48.7 degrees.

Tellico River is flowing at 807 cfs, 2.78 feet, compared to median flow of 300 cfs for this date.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 460 cfs, 3.63 feet, compared to median flow of 118 cfs.

As you can see from the numbers above, the streams have plenty of flow this morning. They are receding slowly. The ground is saturated from the copious amounts of rain that has fallen. At the Knoxville Airport, rainfall is almost eleven inches above normal for this year. The water table is full. Springs are feeding water into the streams.

You may catch trout with the water at these levels. Be careful wading. Pick your spots and don’t take chances.

The water will be trending warmer beginning today. The streams are a little chilly this morning. I would start with nymphs. And they would be heavily weighted. You can stand in safe water and “high stick” or or use Euro Nymphing tactics, and catch fish. You may continue to use nymphs all day. Dry flies might work. I think nymphs will work better in this high water.

This is a good time to be practicing high water fly fishing in the Smokies. If you learn to catch trout when the water is high, you will have expanded your fly fishing knowledge.  

High sticking is something I learned to do in the early 80’s. I was fishing with some friends in Pennsylvania. Melvin helped us learn to fish using a tight line and heavily weighted nymphs. We didn’t have strike indicators back then. Detecting strikes was all done by “feel” and intuition.

I learned to follow the path of the nymph with my rod tip, with no slack in the leader. If I felt anything, I would strike. Sometimes there would be nothing and other times I would hook a fish. My buddies and I always called it “short line nymphing”. Our fly line never touched the water. Only the leader and tippet did. It works. It always has. When I moved to the Smokies over 25 years ago, I heard the term “high sticking”. It was the same thing, just referred to it differently.

The more you practice, the better you get.

Then, strike indicators came along. That allowed nymph fishermen to cast longer distances, mend their fly line, and get a good drift. It allowed anglers to see the trout take their sub-surface flies, not feel it. I use strike indicators too.

Euro Nymphing is a modern name of that similar style of nymphing. Euro Nymphing was partially developed by teams competing internationally, particularly teams from Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France and America.

This term is fairly new to me. I am researching it further now. We have two classes on the subject in May, though both of them are full. I think we’ll be holding more this Fall. We also hold some nymphing classes. I’m not sure if they have been filled this year.

There are specific components that were developed for Euro Nymphing, including rods, leaders, lines, hooks and beads. We are stocking more of those components in our fly tying department now.

There are wade fishing opportunities on some of the tailwaters, specifically, Norris and Cherokee. Check the TVA website to see if their schedule works with yours.

There are also some tailwater generation schedules suitable for floating or wading for smallmouth bass.

The lowland rivers are probably all flowing high. Floating may be an option. Wading will be tough. Again, you could stand in friendly water and “high stick” nymphs.

If you plan to fish shallow water with a fly rod on a lake, go early or late when the sun is off the water.

We would all prefer lower flows in the freestone streams and they will get better every day until the next deluge.

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

Byron Begley
April 22, 2019    

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com