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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:09 am, the temperature outside is 43.2 degrees.
Today will be mostly cloudy with a high in the 70’s and a low tonight in the 50’s. Rain should arrive tonight and continue through tomorrow morning. The rain chance forecast varies from 50% to 90% from different weather websites. It is possible we will get ½ inches of rain tonight through tomorrow, with higher amounts in thunderstorms. It could be less. I hope it is more.
Little River is flowing at 22.7 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.07 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 89 cfs. The water temperature is 59.0 degrees this morning.
I checked the flows and water temperatures at all reporting USGS gauge sites in or near the Smokies. The streams are all flowing below median flow and the water temperatures are cool. As of lately, the streams on the North Carolina side of the Park are flowing comparatively higher than those on the Tennessee side.
You can fish the low elevations now that the water is cooler, without worrying about harming trout you catch and release. Stream temperatures are within the trout’s preferred range in the low to mid elevations.
The trout will be hiding in the broken water or near cover today. Conditions tomorrow depend on how much rain we get. We will have to see what happens. I would use a dry fly with a nymph dropper. Choose a reasonable dry fly that you can see from a distance. A Parachute Adams is a good example. A foam beetle with a bright colored foam sight indicator is another. Green Weenies will probably work for your nymph. If not, try a Pheasant Tail nymph.
Due to the low water conditions, you may need to fish further from the best fish holding areas, to avoid detection. Dress to blend in and stay low. Present your fly in the good areas without dropping your fly line on top of the trout. Get a good drift. Anglers are catching trout in the Smokies, and some are doing very well.
I talked to a customer yesterday from Louisiana. He has been a customer since 2007 or 2008. He told me, he prefers low water. The trout are concentrated in smaller areas. He started fly fishing here during drought years. He is accustomed to fishing in low water conditions. He is backpacking now, at Cataloochee Creek.
My buddy Jack and I were talking about trout stocking in the lowland rivers yesterday. Normally, trout would have been stocked in Little River through Townsend. The heat wave and drought has caused the stocking to be suspended. The trout are waiting at the Buffalo Springs hatchery for better conditions. Maybe that will happen this week. Evidently, they are stocking in the North Carolina lower elevation streams, outside the Smokies.
Take a look at the TVA website generation schedules. There appear to be some fishing opportunities available to you. Some of the trout tailwaters have been fishing well lately.
The long term weather forecast indicates we may see weather conditions closer to normal through the end of October. I’m seeing cooler temps and a greater chance for rain in the forecast. October is normally a cool and dry month. The average high temperature is 71 degrees. The average low temperature is 43 degrees. Average rainfall for the month is 2.67 inches. November is normally cooler and much wetter.
If you look at the total year so far, it has been wet. Rainfall as reported at the Knoxville Airport is over 10 inches above normal. We had too much rain this Spring and not enough during the last few months, causing drought conditions in much of the Southeast and in some of the States to our north.
This has been a tough year in the fly fishing business, in our part or the US. Remarkably, our business has been good, with only two months where sales were below last year, February and September. The first two weeks of October are up from last year. We made some operational changes at the shop a year ago that has improved our business, despite the negative impacts of the weather this year.
I am optimistically looking forward to the future. I can’t help but talk about business on this fishing report, because I love the fly fishing business.
Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.
Byron Begley
October 15, 2019
Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com |