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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:37 am, the temperature outside is 44.2 degrees.

The Knoxville Airport reported .25” of rain yesterday, while Townsend received .18”.

Today will be cloudy and warm. Tomorrow will be very warm, with a high temperature reaching 60 degrees in Townsend. It will rain tomorrow, with precipitation amounts between three quarters and one inch possible. It may be windy too.

There is a chance for snow Sunday and it will be very cold, especially Sunday night. Expect low temperatures in the teens Sunday night.

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PREDICTED HIGHS AND LOWS TODAY

Little River is flowing at 336 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.35 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 267 cfs. The water temperature is 44.6 degrees this morning.

All streams in the Park, that have USGS gauge sites, are flowing above median flow.

Today could be a pretty good fishing day. The water is somewhat warm, and it will warm further today. It will also be overcast, which is beneficial to anglers.

I would start with weighted nymphs and streamers. Try a Tellico, Hare’s Ear, Prince or Pheasant Tail nymph. A Muddler Minnow is a good streamer choice. You may see a blue wing olive hatch so be prepared with BWO dries and emergers. You may see other aquatic insects on the water.

Tomorrow would be perfect for January fishing except for two potential negatives, wind and heavy rain. The water is going to be very warm. If we don’t get too much rain, and the wind is not strong, fishing will be good. We will just have to see what happens.

It is going to be cold Saturday night through Monday. Water temperatures will plunge and fishing will slow. Snow in the mountains could cause roads to close Sunday or before. Sometimes the Park closes roads in anticipation of upcoming wind, snow or ice weather events.

You might want to spend the day with us tomorrow. Guides Rob Fightmaster and Jon Oody will be conducting fly tying demonstrations and fly fishing discussion at the shop between 10 am and 2 pm. This event is Free. Just show up. Rob will be tying carp flies. Jon will tie streamers. Both demonstrations should be very interesting and fun. These guys are professional guides. You can always learn from guides.

I’m going to spend today and the weekend building the Renzetti fly tying tool department on our online store. I am doing all the photography, writing the text and putting the tools on the site. I hope to finish Sunday.

Right now, I’m throwing everything in to two categories, tools and vises. When finished, there will be sub-categories too, so you can click to see them broken down. You can see the progress so far by CLICKING HERE. I have not edited all the text, so if you see errors, I will probably catch them later. There will be Renzetti produced videos on some of the item pages when I’m done.

Someone ordered a very nice vise yesterday, online. Thank you sir in Kentucky!

Lily and Andy Renzetti are people I really like and admire. We have been friends for a long time.

Whiting Farms is killing chickens again, this week and next week. I talked to the sales manager, Phil, yesterday. I ordered some necks, saddles and 100 packs. He is going to send what he has, then re-order what they don’t have in stock, so we can get more in a couple of weeks.

You may wonder and so did I. No, they don’t ring the chicken’s necks. They use some sort of gas chamber. Any other method would be cruel and also damage the feathers. Whiting raised 60,000 birds in 2015. There is no telling how many they raise today, and they are building even more barns.

Their farms are also scattered, for disease loss prevention. Every precaution is taken, to prevent diseases.

Roosters are genetically produced with long legs, so their feathers don’t drag on the ground and ruin them.  

If you have not read the history of Whiting Farms and the chicken breeds that have been genetically developed for fly tyers, CLICK HERE. It is a very interesting story.

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

Byron Begley
January 18, 2019

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