Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:39 am, the temperature is 69 degrees.

We are under a flood watch. “Flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall is possible. Thunderstorms with heavy rain are expected to begin this morning and last until 1:00 pm this afternoon. One to two inches of rain may fall within an hour in some locations.” The high temperature today will be around 80 degrees.

The information above was collected from the National Weather Service and Weather.com.

There is a chance for thunderstorms tomorrow with a high in the middle 80’s.

Little River is flowing at 114 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.69 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 126 cfs. The water temperature is 68.4 degrees this morning.

Right now, most streams in the mountains are flowing near normal.

If you plan to fish in the mountains today, wait a while to see what happens. Refer to the USGS gauge sites from the links below. Heavy rain in the high elevations takes a while to affect the gauge sites in the low elevations

I would also wait for a while before fishing in the stocked trout rivers or lowland rivers. USGS sites will indicate what is going on in some of these rivers.

I would wait before going fishing on the lakes. I would go this afternoon.

There are some generation schedules that tailwater anglers can work with today. Visit the TVA website from the links below to see what your options are and plan accordingly.

The weather forecasts I read this morning were a complete surprise to me. We could use some rain, but not that much. Maybe the rain will not be that heavy. Or maybe it will. It may not rain at all. We will know in a few hours.

We will be open today, as usual. We have been very busy at the shop this month and this year. Today, we will all be watching the weather and the gauges.

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

Byron Begley
July 20, 2023

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Parking Tags are now required to park your vehicle inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park for more than 15 minutes. Tags may be purchased at Visitors Centers, including the center in Townsend. Or, they may be purchased online. You can buy a daily, weekly or annual tag. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com