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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:49 am, the temperature is 49.3 degrees.

It has been raining overnight. We have had .25 inches so far. Rain will continue through today, changing to rain mixed with snow later. The high temperature today will be in the upper 40’s falling to the low 20’s tonight. It will be windy with gusts up to 40 miles per hour.

We can expect snow showers tonight with accumulations of 1 to 2 inches in the foothills and more in the mountains. I saw one weather website that predicted as much as 12 inches of snow in the high elevations. Tomorrow will be cloudy and breezy with a high temperature in the mid-30’s dropping to the teens tomorrow night.

Little River is flowing at 141 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.82 feet on the gauge and rising. Median flow for this date is 243 cfs. The water temperature is 49.1 degrees this morning.

Most streams in the Smokies are rising. Some are rising quickly.

This is probably not a good day to be fishing in the mountains, especially later. Depending on how much rain we get, some streams could be stained. It will be windy. It will be snowing in the high elevations, which are under a winter storm warning today and tonight.

Highway 441 Newfound Gap Road is closed due to ice and snow. More roads may close today or tonight in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Lowland river fishing will slow as water temperatures fall. These rivers will rise today and could be stained.

I do not see many wade fishing options today on the tailwaters in our area. If you are boating, you have more choices. If it is as windy as they say it will be, you might be better off not going.

For the same reasons, I would not go lake fishing either. Wind, rain and snow do not make for a good lake fishing day.

This will be a good fly tying day.

I am tying our Byron’s Knuckleheads again after about 3 years of having them tied overseas. The fly company handling the tying and importing had fulfillment issues so we dropped them as one of our suppliers. I set up a fly tying desk in my office at the shop with two vises. I plan to tie 30 per week or about 1,500 per year. They take 10 minutes each to tie. I pre-cut hundreds of body parts and legs. I buy the mono eyes in 1,000 packs.

Byron’s Knucklehead is a foam floating fly I originally designed to fish for smallmouth bass in rivers. I worked on the design over a winter several years ago, then started tying them to sell in the shop.

Later, I found they worked well for all bass and warmwater species on lakes. Then, a guide in another state started buying them to catch large trout on a tailwater. I just sent him 50 to use next year.

They are not hard to tie. A beginner can do it. Black and Chartreuse are the best colors I’ve found so far. They are very durable if you tie them correctly. The first and last steps require Locktite Gel applied.

I have a jig for cutting the foam strips and I use two vises, so I can tie a fly while the glue on the first step of another fly dries.

You can learn more about this fly and how to tie it by CLICKING HERE. We will have them for sale in the shop and on our online store by Spring.

I originally named the fly a Knucklehead. I learned later, the same name is used for a bass plug. So I added my name to avoid confusion and a possible lawsuit.

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

Byron Begley
November 30, 2020

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com