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Welcome to the Fishing Report form Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:01 am, the temperature outside is 69.4 degrees.
It will be cloudy early today, giving away to sunshine later. The high temperature will be in the low 80’s falling to the low to mid 60’s tonight. No rain is predicted today.
It will be cooler this week. Expect highs in the low 80’s with lows in the low to mid 60’s through Saturday. Rain will return to the forecast beginning tomorrow night. Rain is likely every day through Saturday.
August has been a wet month. The Knoxville Airport recorded 6.30 inches of rain this month so far, compared to normal of 1.86 inches for the period.
Little River is flowing at 176 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.86 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 115 cfs. The water temperature is 68.7 degrees.
Rain fell in the Little Pigeon River watershed overnight and the river is rising quickly. Flow is currently 744 cfs, 2.49 feet, compared to median flow of 257 cfs at the Sevierville gauge.
Oconaluftee River, Tellico River and Cataloochee Creek are all flowing higher than normal this morning and receding. They all look to be in good shape.
Most lowland rivers are probably flowing above normal. Little River is. Little Pigeon is flowing fairly high and rising. You may encounter stained water in the Little Pigeon for a while. Smallmouth bass fishing is probably fair to good depending on which river you are fishing. Poppers, hair bugs and foam floating flies will work. Cast to the shaded areas.
There will be angler friendly flows on some tailwaters and not on others today. When you visit the TVA website, watch for sluicing notification at some dams.
Lake fishing is fair using flies. It will be sunny later today so I would go early, at daybreak. Cast hair bugs, foam floating flies and poppers to the shaded banks. If the top water flies are not working, switch to heavily weighted streamers or swimming nymphs.
I’m trying to get better at tying spun deer hair bugs. The only way to do that is keep trying! I have never been good at that.
I like rubber legs on poppers and foam floating flies. Tying them into a spun deer hair body has been frustrating. Last evening I tried something that works, to keep the legs out of the way. I cut about an inch of a finger from a latex glove, cut a small hole in the end and slid it over my bobbin. I spun the hair to the point where I wanted to tie in the legs then trimmed the hair.
After tying the legs in, I slid the finger off the bobbin, down the thread to the fly, then pulled it over the body which held the legs back and out of the way. Then, I continued spinning hair toward the hook eye. It worked. For all I know, everyone does this or something similar. The idea was new to me.
I also bought a bullethead tool made by Renzetti. That may work better but I have not tried it. I will tonight.
Deer hair bugs land on the water softly like a foam floating fly, something I think works well on lakes or slick pools in rivers for smallmouth bass. They land on the water like a natural cicada or some other big bug. Trout will probably notice and respond the realistic soft landing too.
Fly tyers who are masters at spinning deer hair amaze me. I’ve watched Chris Helm and Brandon Bailes spin. They are two of the best I’ve seen. I will never reach their level of expertise but I just want to improve enough to catch more fish on hair bugs I tied myself.
Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.
Byron Begley
August 17, 2020
NOTICE: FLY TYERS WEEKEND HAS BEEN CANCELLED THIS YEAR.
Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com |
