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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:45 am, the temperature is 58.1 degrees.

It will be sunny and comfortable today with a high temperature in the upper 70’s, falling to the upper 50’s tonight. Tomorrow will be sunny and warmer with a high in the middle to upper 80’s. It will be hot Monday, in the low 90’s.

Heavy rain fell night before last, raising stream levels in the Smokies. Anglers found high and stained water yesterday. Little River and Tellico River set a record high flows for the date.

Little River is now flowing at a very good fishing level. Flow is currently 328 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.33 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 129 cfs. The water temperature is 64.2 degrees this morning.

Most streams have receded to a fairly high but good levels for fishing. Water temperatures are cool for early July. This will be a good fishing day in the Smokies. Dry flies and nymphs will work for you. Choose from terrestrial, Yellow Sally Stonefly or any reasonable dry fly. Small bead head nymphs or Green Weenies are good sub-surface choices.

Many lowland rivers exiting the mountains are at good “Spring like” flows. Some may still be flowing fairly high, Tellico River for instance. Fishing will be good for smallmouth bass, rock bass and panfish. Poppers or foam floating flies are a great start but you may do well using streamers or nymphs too.

The lowland rivers will be popular this weekend, for tubing and swimming. Go early or late.

There are some tailwater fishing opportunities today. You will need to be flexible and work around the predicted generation schedules. Most of the dams I checked will be generating later today with some opportunities for wade fishing this morning. Visit the TVA website to see what your options are.

This will be a beautiful holiday weekend and the lakes will be packed with recreation boaters. I would plan to launch at daybreak, fish until later in the morning, then go home. Hit the banks with poppers, foam floating flies, streamers or swimming nymphs. As the sun rises, look for shaded banks to fish.

I will be with Walter Babb today, working on a web page to advertise the sale of many bamboo rods he has made and intends to sell. Walter is a well known excellent maker and though he does make custom rods, he has also created many more and kept. The list I saw looked to have about 50 rods, but I could be wrong. I did not actually count them. The page should be on the web in a week or two. If you are interested in talking to Walter about buying one or two, send me an email and I will send you his contact information.

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

Byron Begley
July 3, 2021

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com