If you do not see today’s Fishing Report, please refresh your browser to empty your cache.

Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:41 am, the temperature outside is 72.0 degrees.

Today will be sunny and hot, with a high temperature in the low 90’s. Thunderstorms are back in the forecast tomorrow through Saturday. Tomorrow will be hot again. Cooler temperatures arrive Friday and through the weekend. High temperatures will be in the low 80’s, falling to the mid-60’s at night.

Little River is flowing at 284 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.14 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 116 cfs. The water temperature is 67.8 degrees this morning.

Happy Independence Day to you. Little River Outfitters will be open today, but many Americans will not be working. The Park will be crowded. The lakes will be packed with boats. People will be cooling off in the Park streams.

If you plan to fish in the Smokies, you should choose a higher elevation stream where the water is cooler. The low elevation streams will be very warm. Catching and releaseing a trout in warm water is unhealthy for the trout. Do them a favor and leave them alone during this heat wave.

I would hike into the backcountry to get away from people.

Take plenty of water or a water purifier.

There is no way I would take our boat to a lake to fish today.

Jack and I spent the day on the lake yesterday. It was not crowded at all. We were on the water for 7 hours with the sun beating down on us and it was hot. Fishing was good. We caught largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, bluegill and shellcrackers.

If you go fishing in the Smokies I suggest you have some foam beetles, Green or Pink Weenies, Yellow Neversink Caddis, small Yellow Stimulators, and that’s about it. Fishing is good. If you are not catching many trout, you may be fishing behind someone.

Fishing conditions are very good in the Park due to the abundance of rain. And, there is more in the forecast. We could not ask for better fishing conditions in July.

Black bears have been very active and showing up in unusual places, like towns or cities, even in Knoxville. I found a great article on the Knox News website this morning, on the subject. You can read it by CLICKING HERE.

Be careful out there. There will be a lot of traffic on the roads and waterways.

Have a great 4th and thank you for being here with us.

Byron Begley
July 4, 2018  

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com