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 5:14 am, the temperature outside is 65.5 degrees.

Today will be sunny and pleasant with a high around 87 degrees, dipping to the low 60’s tonight. Tomorrow will be almost identical to today. No rain is expected this weekend.

Little River is flowing at 39.6 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.21 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 75 cfs. The water temperature is 70.9 degrees this morning.

Little Pigeon River is flowing at 112 cfs, 1.24 feet, compared to median flow of 151 cfs.

Oconaluftee River is flowing at 169 cfs, 1.22 feet, which compares to median flow of 202 cfs. The water temperature is 66.4 degrees.

Tellico River, at the Tellico Plains gauge site is flowing at 57.0 cfs, .65 feet, which compares to median flow of 71 cfs.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 32.4 cfs, 2.18 feet, compared to median flow of 40 cfs. The water temperature is 61.3 degrees.

The streams are flowing low in the Smoky Mountains. I talked to Will yesterday. He is an excellent angler. He fished the Middle Prong of Little River yesterday. He told me fishing was slow. There are some streams flowing higher, but overall, they are all flowing below median flow.

Stealth is the name of the game. Don’t let the trout see you and you will catch more. The trout will be hiding in broken water, in riffles, plunge pools, deep runs or near other cover.

The water is warm in the low elevations, Fish the higher elevation streams where the water is cooler. Try dry flies, nymphs or a combination of both. I would choose terrestrial patterns but other reasonable flies will work as well.

Lowland rivers are flowing very low. Fish the deep pools. Go early or late when the sun is off the water. Try poppers or foam floating flies.

Lake fishing will be best early or late when the sun is off the water. Use poppers, foam floating flies, streamers or nymphs.

There are some tailwater fishing opportunities at times today. Visit the TVA website from the links below to plan your day. On some tailwaters, you should be there early this morning.

We have a two-day beginner fly fishing class held this weekend. Both classes are filled with students, eight today and six tomorrow for the onstream class.

A large order from Simms arrived yesterday, bringing us up to our target stock level. When it cools, we will be selling more waders, as less anglers will be wet wading. We are prepared for that. We will be re-ordering weekly through December, to restock what sold the week before.

Yesterday, a customer drove four hours, round trip, to shop in our fly tying department. He was looking for a higher end Renzetti vise. We keep several models in stock. We had the vise he wanted. He bought materials and other tools too. Our fly tying department is very large and always fully stocked. That attracts customers from long distances and yesterday was a good example. I saw many other customers shopping in the fly tying department yesterday.

This is college football game day. We are busy on Saturdays, early, until the games begin. Then, it is usually slow. I love college football but I hate how it affects our Saturday business during the season. Like many of you, I will be watching games this afternoon too. I will go the shop at 7:15 am and work until noon. Then, I’ll be back here at home, with Paula, glued to the TV.

We love our college football in the Southeast!

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

Byron Begley
September 21, 2019

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com