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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:37 am, the temperature is 30.9 degrees.
It will be warmer today, in the middle 50’s, with rain moving into the area later this morning. We may get up to an inch of rain today and up to a half of an inch tonight. Tonight’s low temperature will be in the upper 20’s. It will be sunny tomorrow with a high in the low 40’s.
Little River is flowing at 401 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.52 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 294 cfs. The water temperature is 42.3 degrees and warming.
Most streams in the Smokies are flowing near normal this morning. We should expect the rivers and streams to rise later today. Snow will be melting in the mountains and rainfall may be fairly heavy. The ground is saturated.
This is not an ideal day to be fishing in the mountains. If you go, fish the lower elevations. Weighted nymph rigs are probably your best bet.
Lowland river fishing for smallmouth bass will be slow. Fishing for stocked trout in these rivers may be a little better. The streams are cold but we may see some warming later today. On the other hand we may not, due to snow melt in the mountains. If you go, use nymphs, egg patterns, squirmy worms and mop flies for the stocked trout. Small Wooly Buggers are another option that might prove to work. Try olive, black or white.
Release schedules at most area dams will not be angler friendly for wade fishing in the tailwaters. Check the TVA website from the links below to see if you can find a suitable generation schedule on your favorite tailwater.
It appears Highway 441 (Newfound Gap Road), the best route between Gatlinburg and Cherokee, is still closed due to snow and ice. If you don’t have it, CLICK HERE to view Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s Roads Twitter Page and save it. This is a very useful source of information for those who fish in the Park.
I spent the better part of three days pouring through sales reports generated for items sold in the fly tying department. I looked at the numbers for the past three months and the prior year. Using these numbers, I can decide and set the desired inventory level in our inventory control system which generates automated orders at the push of a button. Will and I push that button weekly to submit orders to our largest suppliers.
This has to be done several times during the year. We need to stock more during the colder months when more people are tying flies and less during the warm months when our customers are fishing more. Also, customer buying habits change from one period compared to another for many reasons, some of which I have no idea why. For instance, I stock 9 Renzetti Traveler C2003 vises now, but less during the warm months. We sell a lot of those, sometimes more than one in a day.
I export the reports by vendor and sort the items by unit sales. I did that with Wapsi, our largest fly tying materials supplier. The number 3 best seller for the last quarter was Pink Sili Worms, used to tie Squirmy Worms. Two other colors, red and shrimp pink were in the top 100. Ultra Chenille Micro, in the colors chartreuse and shell pink were high on the list. Those materials are used to tie Green and Pink Weenies.
What does this information mean to us and you? It tells me to stock more of those materials. And, we all should assume a lot of anglers out there are using squirmy worms and weenies to catch trout.
Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.
Byron Begley
January 9, 2022
WALTER BABB MADE BAMBOO FLY RODS FOR SALE DIRECTLY FROM WALTER – CLICK HERE
Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com
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