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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:48 am, the temperature is 64.9 degrees.

It has been raining at our house since 2:14 am, with a total so far of .13 inches. We have a chance for showers early today then a chance for more rain and thunderstorms this afternoon. The high temperature today will be in the upper 70’s to 80 degrees. It will be partly cloudy this morning, cloudy later today and overcast tomorrow.

Rain is likely tonight and tomorrow. Moderate to heavy rainfall is possible. It will be much cooler tomorrow, with a high in the 50’s and a low in the high 40’s tomorrow night. Cooler and drier air will prevail Wednesday and through the weekend.

Little River is flowing at 303 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.26 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 84 cfs. The water temperature is 61.9 degrees this morning.

Little Pigeon River is flowing at 567 cfs, 2.23 feet, which compares to median flow of 121 cfs for this date.

Oconaluftee River at Birdtown is flowing at 518 cfs, 1.86 feet, compared to median flow of 204 cfs.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 113 cfs, 2.64 feet, which compares to median flow of 40 cfs.

Tellico River is flowing at 287 cfs, 1.62 feet, compared to median flow of 75 cfs.

Streams in the Smokies are flowing higher than normal. However, normal in early Fall is low. What we have now are Spring-like flows. Water temperatures are good, even in the low elevations and that should continue for a while.

Nymphs will work for you. Dry flies may produce as well. I think nymphs will work best. Most important to your success is staying hidden from the trout and getting a good drift with our flies. Don’t spook the fish and present your flies well.

Lowland rivers are flowing much higher than normal. Wading may be limited is some rivers but you should be able to work with that. Smallmouth bass and other lowland species now have more space to spread out. It will be overcast at times today. You may do best with streamers or nymphs but the fish may be taking top water flies too. As water temperatures fall this week, streamer and nymph fishing may be your best options.

TVA and the Corps of Engineers will be generating for long periods at some dams, but not as much at others. Check the TVA website to plan your tailwater fishing day. You do have some options.

Overcast skies offer good lake fishing conditions. Bass and other species tend to be closer to the surface when the sun is off the water. We are usually fishing closer to the surface with flies. Today might be good. I would go early to make sure you have plenty of time to fish without sun beating down on the surface. Hopefully, today will be mostly cloudy.

I would try foam floating flies, poppers or hair bugs first. I would be casting to the banks unless I noticed fish attacking shad schools on the surface. If the top water flies are not working, switch to streamers or swimming nymphs to fish deeper. My favorite streamer is a big weighted black Wooly Bugger tied in sizes #2 to 2/0. I tie mine on jig hooks. Olive and Purple work well too. When I mention swimming nymphs, I am referring to a dragonfly nymph pattern. Dragonfly nymphs swim. I tie mine in a lot of different colors, though black, olive, chartreuse and rusty orange seem to work best.

I am tying one or two hair bugs in bass and bluegill sizes every day and enjoying it very much. The first one I ever tied was in a class at the shop about 20 years ago. We had Bob Clouser here to teach a class. A student dropped out at the last minute and I took his spot. One of the flies we tied was one of Lefty Kreh’s bass patterns, which had no rubber legs and no eyes. Chris Helm demonstrated and taught at the shop a couple of times over the years. He was an expert at tying deer hair flies.

Lefty loved deer hair bugs. Lefty was an avid warmwater fly fisherman. He talked about bass bugs often. He told me once, smallmouth bass fishing was his favorite.

These bugs float but they do so almost submerged. You can treat them with floatant and they will float a little higher on the surface. They are hard to see by us, but they look natural to the fish. I hardly ever retrieve a bass bug when fishing on flat water in lakes. I cast to the bank and let the bug sit and maybe give it a slight twitch. I believe, when a bug hits the water, every bass in the area knows it is there.

If they don’t take the bug in a few seconds, I pick up and cast again to a different spot as the boat moves along the banks. Once you have your distance dialed in, you can pick up and cast again without over-casting or under-casting to your target. If your boat is moving further or closer to the bank, adjust how much line you have out. There is no need to false cast unless you are fishing a long distance from the bank. Just pick up in one motion and lay the bug out again. You can cover a lot of water that way and do it accurately. If you can’t see the bug, you will know where it is. Watch for a swirl.

You have to be extremely quiet when fishing Stillwater lakes. One thump on the boat will alert smallmouth bass for a long distance and they will be unlikely to take a top water fly or maybe anything else.

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

Byron Begley
September 28, 2020  

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com