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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:15 am, the temperature outside is 58.6 degrees.

Today will be sunny and warm with a high temperature in the upper 80’s. The low tonight will be in the low 60’s. Tomorrow, Sunday and Monday will be similar, but with cooler daytime temperatures. Little to no rain is predicted during the period.

Little River is flowing at 80 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.59 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 88 cfs. The water temperature is 67.1 degrees this morning.

Little Pigeon River is flowing at 305 cfs, 1.75 feet, compared to median flow of 163 cfs.

Oconaluftee River is flowing at 261 cfs, 1.48 feet, and that compares to median flow of 199 cfs. The water temperature is 64.0 degrees.

Tellico is also flowing higher than normal at 119 cfs or 1.01 feet. Median flow for this date is 90 cfs.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing very close to median flow at 45.6 cfs or 2.28 feet. Median flow for this date is 49 cfs.

Though most streams are flowing low, they are flowing normal or slightly above normal.

Low stream flows are normal in late August. At these levels, stealth is even more important to your fly fishing success. Dress to blend in with the forest.

The water is cooling in the mountains. If that continues, and it may, you can fish the lower elevation streams. Look for water temperatures in the 60’s.

Dry flies and nymphs will work. The trout will be hiding in broken water found in riffles, plunge pools or runs. Fish the shaded areas of streams when the sun is high this weekend.

Fishing is fair to good in the lowland rivers. Go early or late. Fish the shaded banks if the stream you are fishing has them. Little River is lined with trees for the most part, in the lowlands. Poppers and foam floating flies should work for you.

Lake fishing will be best early or late during the weekend holiday. I would expect most of the lakes to be crowded with pleasure boats this weekend.

There are a few tailwater options today but they are limited. Refer to the TVA website from the links below to see if your style or mode of fishing will work for you, where and when.

We are the main source for fishing licenses in Townsend. We sell a lot. They take time. It requires extra staff, especially during the tourist season. Sometimes, I’ve seen eight or ten people waiting in line at the checkout counters to buy them. I don’t know of any other store in town that sells them. Maybe some do that I don’t know of. Licenses are not very profitable. I think we probably lose money on license sales. But, we have always sold them.

That is one reason we are building a third cash register checkout counter in the main shop area. It will be running next Spring. We have another one in the shipping department. That will bring the total to four with the potential to add a fifth counter.

Many of those customers do not fly fish. They use spinning tackle. And, many do not buy fly fishing tackle. That is why we have always had a spinning department in our store, since day one, almost 25 years ago.

Spin fishers are customers at our store. We treat them well. Those customers are potential fly fishing customers. Since spinning customers are well taken care of, should they decide to try fly fishing, we are probably the first source for tackle and help, that they think of. I believe many people who fish with spinning tackle, would like to try fly fishing. I started fishing with spinning tackle when I was a kid. I didn’t take up fly fishing until I was eleven years old, in 1962.

Running a spin fishing department is not easy and that is one of the departments I manage, including the fly tying department. Paula and I will attend a buying show in Nashville again next January, to look at and purchase spinning tackle for the year. It is a huge show, not open to the public, and held at the convention center downtown. People travel from all over America, to attend that show.

I order about every two weeks for that department during the busy months. I buy most of it from a huge distributor with several distribution centers in North America, including Canada. I do it all online, ordering on Monday and having the tackle in the shop by Friday.

Some orders arrive from different distribution centers. If one is out of stock, what I order may come from another center or more than one. I never know where it is coming from.

Conventional fishing tackle has a low profit margin, in our case, because we use Bass Pro Shops as our pricing model. Some stores may charge more than we do. I like the fact that our prices are competitive. Customers like that too.

You may think our conventional tackle department has grown. It has grown. We see customers buying spinning and fly fishing tackle at the same time. That is not uncommon.

So, now you know why.

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

Byron Begley
August 30, 2019   

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com