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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:15 am, the temperature is 39.6 degrees.

Today will be mostly sunny and breezy. Winds will be from the southwest at 5 to 10 miles per hour, increasing to 15 to 20 mph this afternoon with gusts to 30 mph. The high temperature will be in the low 50’s. Warm daytime temperatures will prevail through Wednesday. No precipitation is predicted until Wednesday night and lasting through Christmas Eve.

Little River is flowing at 332 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.31 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 219 cfs. The water temperature is 44.8 degrees this morning.

All streams in the Smokies that have USGS gauge sites are flowing slightly above normal. Water temperatures are chilly, but we will see some warming over the next three days. Fishing will improve somewhat. The warmer the water becomes, the better the fishing will be.

Fishing will be best later each day when the water is warmer. Nymphs will be your best fly choices. Use heavily weighted nymphs to get down deep quickly. High sticking or Euro nymphing techniques will help keep your flies moving at the same speed as the flow.

The speed of the water is slower near the bottom of the stream, than it is on the surface. Friction on the streambed slows the water down. Heavy nymphs and finer tippet will help you keep your nymphs moving along with the slower water below. I would not use strike indicators. They will drag your nymphs faster. Instead, fish close and keep your leader tight, so you can feel strikes. If anything feels different, set the hook.

Lowland river fishing is slow for smallmouth bass and other lowland species. Fishing for stocked trout will improve some in these rivers over the next few days. Nymphs and possibly streamers will work best for you. Egg patterns are good fly choices right now in the stocked streams.

TVA and the Corps plan to generate at most dams today, at every dam I checked this morning. You may find breaks in the schedules on your favorite tailwater so visit the TVA website from the links below to see what your options are.

This is not going to be a good lake fishing day. It will be windy, especially later.

The length of the daylight hours will slowly increase after today. Most of us say, “the days will be longer”. That gives us hope that Spring fishing will be coming soon. We have seen Spring hatches and good fishing as early as mid-February in recent past years. In other years, that happens in March. We are always hoping for several consecutive days with water temperatures near or at 50 degrees in the Southern Appalachians. When that occurs, the early hatches begin. Trout become more active. We will switch to dry flies and emergers.

We are in the southern range where wild trout live. We experience Spring fishing earlier than states to our north.

A great selection of capes, saddles, bugger packs and tailing packs arrived from Whiting Farms yesterday, on Sunday. The delivery companies are working overtime. We also got a few Coq de Leon capes. They are beautiful. It was Will’s idea to order them. He uses them to tie competition flies.

I placed the photos below on yesterday’s fishing report. I saw a bobcat at our home Saturday, so I remembered to dig out the photos for you to enjoy. That was the second bobcat I have seen at our home this year. They were not the same animal. One was large and the other was small. The smaller bobcat caught a squirrel and proudly walked by our back door holding it in his mouth. Bobcats are beautiful wild animals that are rarely seen by humans.

I took the top three photos from my home office window a few years ago. Our neighbor shot the bottom photo about two years earlier. I wonder if it was the same cat? Maybe the one I saw Saturday was the same animal. Bobcats love squirrels and rabbits. We have plenty of those around our house.

Our bird feeders draw in the squirrels during the Winter months. Squirrels attract the bobcats. We only see bobcats during the bird feeding season, which is short here because of the bear activity in the warmer months.

We lost two of our four bird feeders about two weeks ago as a result of a bear attack. We accidently left the feeders out overnight. Two of the four were slightly damaged. The other two are totally missing. The bear tore the brackets that hold the feeders off two 4 x 4 posts. The replacement feeders have been ordered.

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

Byron Begley
December 21, 2020
 

Buy a Walter Babb made bamboo fly rod or his beautiful 10- dozen flies for charity.

“Due to Covid-19, there will not be a Needy Family Fund Auction this year. I made a rod and tied some flies for the Auction this Spring, so I will be selling them and the proceeds will go to the Needy Family Fund.

Th rod is an 8’ 0” 2 piece 6-weight Stan’s Blackfoot, a great taper from Stan Smartt. This is a single tip rod. The price is $850 plus sales tax.

There is also a box of 10 dozen of my favorite nymphs and wet flies. The price is $253.95 plus sales tax if you are a Tennessee resident.

If interested, call Walter Babb at 423-337-6772. I have many other rods, in case someone wants a rod for lighter lines or a shorter small stream type rod.”

Walter   

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com