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 9:00 am this morning it was thundering and raining. We have needed the rain. It has been a nice slow, soaker of a rain. I expect Tremont will be muddy. When we have had a stretch of dry weather the dust from the gravel road coats the trees and then with the first rain it washes into the stream.
The gauge on Little River is giving a reading of 1.39 feet or 45.4 c.f.s. This is starting to go up. Check the gauge before going to be sure it hasn't spiked too high. The daily normal is 116 c.f.s.
Water temperatures are still a bit on the warm side. The Little River near the Park boundary is 73F. Water temperatures will be much cooler in the mid to higher elevations.
Fishing has been pretty good despite low water conditions. One advantage of low water is that the trout are concentrated and you know exactly where they are. You need to be more stealthy and make a good, light presentation. Concentrate on the faster moving water. There is more oxygen in the broken water. All the bubbles and churning water also help to make it harder for the trout to see you.
Mid to higher elevation streams will be best for finding cooler water. It might be worth the walk up the trail above Elkmont or Tremont. Crowds have been light so you shouldn't have a problem finding a place to fish.
Terrestrial patterns like beetles and ants are good right now. Try a Green Weenie as a dropper fly. Small pheasant tail nymphs are also excellent droppers. Yellow Sally patterns like Yellow Stimulators, Neversink Caddis and Rob's Hellbenders are still working well.
We had to release the trout in our Trout in the Classroom tank. They had gotten really large over the summer. The biggest one was probably about 13 inches. It is amazing how quickly they grew.
The tank in now empty and will get a thorough cleaning and hose replacement tomorrow. A new batch of eggs is coming in several weeks and we will start the process over again. This time we are going to try to document the process better on Instagram and Facebook.
Trout in the Classroom is a fun and educational program. Our tank is from the Little River Chapter of Trout Unlimited. They provide tanks in schools around the county. You can read about the TU program here at the main website http://www.troutintheclassroom.org/ Classes start with trout eggs and then follow the life cycle of the trout as they hatch and grow. At the end of the semester the small trout are released into the river. The tanks and the program cost money and are funded by the TU chapters. There is a donation bucket on our tank that helps.
I just checked the streamflow gauge again. The flow had bumped up a tiny bit but now it is back down again. Maybe we'll get some more rain and bring water levels up.
If you head out fishing, keep an eye on the weather. Pop up thunder storms can cause water levels to change rapidly. Have fun though and don't let the possibility of rain keep you off the water.
Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.
Daniel Drake
August 22, 2019
Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com |