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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:13 am, the temperature outside is 61.5 degrees.

It is going to be hot, most of the week, with high temperatures in the low 90’s through Friday. That is ten degrees above normal. Rain chances are lower than previously predicted, through the period.

Little River is flowing low at 34.4 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.31 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 84 cfs. The water temperature is 69.6 degrees this morning.

Little Pigeon River is flowing at 120 cfs, 1.27 feet, which compares to median flow of 218 cfs.

Oconaluftee River is flowing at 169 cfs, 1.22 feet, compared to median flow of 198 cfs. The water temperature is 66.2 degrees.

Tellico River is flowing at 73.6 cfs, .76 feet, compared to median flow of 79 cfs.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 36.2 cfs, 2.21 feet, and that compares to median flow of 42 cfs. The water temperature is 61.9 degrees.

The streams are becoming very warm during the day in the low elevations. For the health of the trout you release, and better fishing, go to the higher elevation streams where the water is cooler. Look for water temperatures in the 60’s.

Most streams are below median flow. Little River is quite a bit lower than normal. It appears this trend will continue through the week and maybe beyond. The trout will be spooky. Stealth is essential to your success. Fish streams that are flowing closer to normal. Concentrate on the broken water. Pockets in riffles, the upper end of plunge pools, deep runs and areas that have natural cover are where the trout will be hiding from predators.

Dry flies and nymphs are working. I would not expect to catch trout hand over fist, but they can be caught. This is certainly a good time to hone your low water fly fishing skills.

The lowland rivers are flowing very low. Go early or late and you will do best on many of them. Fish the deeper and shaded water with foam floating flies. If the river you choose has tree cover, fish the shaded water during the day.

It is the same on the lakes. Go early or later when the sun is off the water.

It is going to be hot out there so drink plenty of fluids. I will be spending a day floating a tailwater this week, fishing for smallmouth bass. I’m looking forward to the trip, but dreading the heat. I bet I will be dipping my hat in the water often.

There are breaks in the generation at some TVA dams today. Refer to the TVA website from the links below to see if you can work with their generation and sluicing schedules.

You probably noticed, if you have visited our fly tying department, we package our spooled materials. All of our threads are packaged, by us. Tinsels and many other body materials are packaged. We added a lot of new thread colors and tinsel colors to the department this week. I spent a lot of time during the past two days, packaging.

That takes a lot of time and it is not very much fun. We think it pays off. First, the spools are well merchandised, so you can see them well on the walls. Our custom printed cards look good on the displays. We place a label on the back of the package, with bar codes, for faster checkout at the cash wrap counters. And, the package keeps the thread fresh and clean.

Each package is hanging on a hook, with a flip tag that describes the item, with the price printed on the tag.

Some spools come to us with a tiny barcode on one end. However, some of those cannot be read by our scanners, which causes problems at checkout. The barcodes are not printed well, in some cases.

I don’t know of any other fly shops that package their spooled materials. Maybe some do. I think they should. Displaying them on walls, spread out and easy to find, takes up a lot of precious wall space. Some shops may not have that space.

Unless you have worked in a fly shop, you probably have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. There is a lot more going on than most customers imagine.

I had no idea, when we got into the this business almost 25 years ago.

I enjoy it all, thankfully.

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

Byron Begley
September 9, 2019

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com