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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:43 am, the temperature outside is 37.0 degrees.

Today and tonight will be warm. It may be very windy today and tonight, with gusts possibly reaching 70 miles per hour in the higher elevations. Heavy rain is predicted tonight and tomorrow.

We may get up to one inch of rain tonight and possibly 2 inches tomorrow in Townsend with higher amounts in the Smokies. The ground is saturated. All of the areas around Great Smoky Mountains National Park are under a flash flood watch or a flash flood warning tonight thorough tomorrow.

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PREDICTED HIGHS AND LOWS TODAY

Little River is flowing at 479 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.64 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 281 cfs. The water temperature is 45.1 degrees this morning.

Little Pigeon River is flowing at 816 cfs, 2.61 feet, and that compares to median flow for this date of 422 cfs.

Oconaluftee River is flowing at 788 cfs, 2.28 feet, compared to median flow of 475 cfs. The water temperature is 42.4 degrees.

Tellico River is flowing at 490 cfs, 2.11 feet, compared to median flow of 235 cfs.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 190 cfs, 2.90 feet, compared to 94 cfs median flow. The water temperature is 40.6 degrees.

I would not go fishing in the Smoky Mountains today because of the threat of high wind. First, it is dangerous. A tree or limb may fall on you or your vehicle. Second, there may be downed trees on roads. Due to the partial government shutdown, trees may not be removed. You could get stuck somewhere and on your own.  

I would also avoid the park tonight and tomorrow due to the flash flood warnings. Flooding is likely. Thunderstorms are possible.

None of these warnings were in the weather forecasts I read early yesterday morning. Heavy rain was not mentioned. Daniel told me about it yesterday afternoon. I had no idea.

Fishing may be fair to good today. I’m calling fishing “slow” due to the chance for high wind today, and tonight, and the flood warnings that have been issued by the National Weather Service.

I hate writing fishing reports like this one, but I’ve written hundreds of them since 2007 when we started posting these daily fishing reports. But, I’ve written a few thousand reports when fishing was good too. The reason for this report is to let you know what is going on here so you can make decisions.

In the early years, Daniel or I would drive into the Park every morning, and look at the flow gauge. We had a chart that converted the gauge height to cfs. We used digital thermometers to take the water temperature.  Then, we would drive back to the shop to place those numbers on this fishing report for you.

Technology improved. The US Geological Survey (USGS) eventually gave us live information on the internet, sent via satellite from each gauge site. Some gauge sites have temperature probes, transmitting the water temperature to their web pages. Others do not.

Terry, who managed the Townsend USGS site replaced some of the equipment in the tiny building inside the Park a few years ago. The temperature readings disappeared on the web page. I called Terry to ask why. He told me, the temperature probe was still working. During the equipment change, the temperature was omitted from the web page. He corrected it and we started getting that very important number. I was happy about that! I know you are too.

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

Byron Begley
December 27, 2018

Fly Tying Classes January, February and March 2019 Taught by Walter Babb and Brian Courtney Beginner to Advanced CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com