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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 7:04 am, the temperature outside is 24.8 degrees.

It is cloudy now, but it will become sunny later. From some locations, including our house, we can see snow on the higher elevation peaks. It will be cold today, in the upper 30’s. Tonight, temperatures will plunge into the teens. Tomorrow will be sunny again, with a high temperature around 40 degrees, dipping to 24 degrees tomorrow night.

We should not see rain again until Thursday night, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Little River is flowing at 651 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.92 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 365 cfs. The water temperature is 42.4 degrees this morning.

Most if not all streams in or near the Smoky Mountains are flowing high.

The water is cold and it is going to be colder. I suspect we will have water temperatures in the 30’s before warming this weekend. Trout feeding activity will be minimal.

This weekend will usher in Spring-like weather. The long term forecast indicates a warming trend will continue through March 19th. There will be rain on some days, but hopefully not too much.

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is doing everything necessary to lower the lake levels to create more storage capacity. They know, Spring rains are coming soon.

TVA is spilling and generating at Norris Dam. The lake level above the dam is 10-feet higher than Summer pool. They would like to see that level about 25 feet lower than it is now.

TVA is sluicing and generating at Cherokee Dam. The lake level is at Summer pool and they would prefer it be 25 feet or so, below what it is now.

They are sluicing and generating at Douglas Dam. The lake level is below Summer pool, but 30 feet above where they would like it to be.

TVA is spilling and generating at Fort Loudoun dam and others on the Tennessee River.

It is close to impossible to find a place to fly fish right now. The tailwaters are blown out and the Park streams are cold and flowing high.

To add insult to injury, the Spring hatches began in the mountains. But, at most times last month, the water was too high to fish.

We will all be glad when fishing conditions are normal again.

I am writing the fishing report from the shop. I have been writing it from home, very early in the morning for three years. I feel the need to be at the shop, so here I am.

That changed my routine this morning. I got up at 5:30 am, worked out and showered. Then I drove here.

Yesterday, I moved some computer equipment from my home office to my shop office. I will have to buy another Apple Mac to use at home. I hate that because the one I use now costs over $2,000. I use the Adobe Suite for graphics and web work and that requires a fast processor and lots of memory. The monitor size is 27 inches, which adds to the cost.

It will be good to have two again because at some point, they die.

I have a laptop too, but I hate it. I’m not used to working using the PC platform and I’m too old to learn. Maybe I’m just too hold to “care to learn”. I don’t know.

Well, let us hope for better fishing this weekend. I am planning to take off four days to fly fish for trout.

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

Byron Begley
March 5, 2019

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

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