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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:55 am, the temperature outside is 68.4 degrees.

Today will be fairly warm with a chance for thunderstorms this afternoon. It will be windy today, with gusts to 20 miles per hour. It will rain tonight with precipitation amounts of about half of an inch. Rain will continue tomorrow and Monday. It will continue to be windy through Sunday night.

Above is the forecast for Townsend. The forecast is totally different on the North Carolina side of the Park, and in the high elevations.

For instance, Maggie Valley is under a wind advisory right now, through tonight. Maggie Valley is under a flash flood watch through Monday night. The National Weather Service rain prediction on the east side of the Smokies is 6 to 10 inches. Other areas east of the high ridges have similar predictions.

If you read the forecast for Mount Leconte, and other higher elevation areas in the Smokies, the wind predictions indicate gusts to 50 miles per hour.

Some campgrounds and roads in Great Smoky Mountains National Park have closed or will close today. The Park has not announced any road closings on their “Road Twitter Page” this morning. I read an article on the Knox News website that listed anticipated closings this weekend. You can read it by CLICKING HERE. It is possible more roads or campgrounds may close this weekend.

Weather forecasts may change too. I think it is safe to say, we are going to get plenty of rain and wind in the Smoky Mountains this weekend. Additionally, flash flooding is possible. 

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PREDICTED HIGHS AND LOWS TODAY

Right now, Little River is flowing peacefully at 134 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.74 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 76 cfs. The water temperature is 69.8 degrees.

There is no way I would plan to go fishing in the Smokies tomorrow, due to strong wind and the potential for flash floods. I don’t think there is any doubt, from what I have read this morning, there will be flooding in the Smokies this weekend. I hope I am wrong.

According to the National Weather Service, many large rivers that drain North Carolina to East Tennessee may get 4 to 8 inches of rain. Some or all may reach flood stage.  Some of those rivers are, French Broad, Pigeon, Hiwassee, Little Tennessee and Nolichucky. These rivers eventually flow into the Tennessee River. This is not good.

This is not a good fishing weekend in East Tennessee. I plan to work and stay near Townsend until this is over.

Remember the bear that was “humanely euthanized” by the Park Service this week? The bear was found near the body of a man near Cades Cove. The bear was aggressive. It had apparently been feeding on the body of the man.

Somehow, the story was mixed up by someone and it was not me. The bear was actually trapped by rangers or biologists. The bear is now wearing a GPS radio collar. It was getting late. So, the bear was released, not far from our home. That would give Park Service officials time to decide what to do with the bear.

Since the bear could be tracked by the signal emitted from the collar, after a decision was made about the bear’s fate, it could be killed later. They decided to kill the bear. The bear may be roaming around out there somewhere. They can’t find it. Maybe it is sitting in the forest, looking in the window at me.

You can read the updated story on the WBIR website by CLICKING HERE. By the time you read it, the bear could be dead.

Be careful out there.

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

Byron Begley
September 15, 2018  

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com