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 5:40 am, the temperature outside is 29.5 degrees.

Today will be warm and partly sunny. Rain arrives tonight. Rain is also likely tomorrow, mostly before noon and it will be warm again. Sunday looks to be beautiful, warm and sunny.

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PREDICTED HIGHS AND LOWS TODAY

Little River is flowing at 267 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.19 feet on the flow gauge. Median flow for this date is 173 cfs. The water temperature is 45.1 degrees this morning.

Little Pigeon River is currently flowing at 486 cfs, 2.14 feet, compared to median flow for this date of 244 cfs.

Oconaluftee River is flowing at 531 cfs, 1.92 feet on the gauge, and that compares to median flow of 327 cfs. The water temperature is 43.3 degrees this morning.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 128 cfs, compared to median flow of 57 cfs. The water temperature is 40.8 degrees.

We have higher than normal flows in the Smokies, but the streams are certainly fishable. The problem this morning is, water temperature. The streams are chilly. Cold water slows the metabolism of the trout, so they do not need food to survive. That is a built-in survival mechanism, to get these trout through the cold months, when food is scarce. The closer the water gets to 40 degrees, I have found the slower the fishing is.

Right now, early this morning, the stream temperatures are still falling. The coming warming trend will warm the water later today and through the weekend. Fishing will improve today, tomorrow and Sunday. Warmer rain is expected Saturday. That should improve the fishing further.

Nymphs would be my choice at first. I would use plenty of split shot to get the flies down. Most reasonable nymph patterns will work. I’ve always been partial to Tellico, Prince, Hare’s Ear and Pheasant Tail patterns in the Smoky Mountains.

You may see some aquatic insects on the surface at times over the next few days. You may see blue wing olives. You may see midges or other aquatic insects. When the water is warmer, trout will become more active, and may be feeding on the surface. Be prepared for that.

Wherever you live and fish for trout, be mindful this is spawning season for brown and brook trout. The trout could be in pre-spawn mode, or actually spawning where you fish soon. You may not have seen this yet, where you fish, but you will.

At some point in time, trout will be on the spawning beds or “redds”. Redds can usually be seen as lighter colored stream gravel, where the fish have fanned the silt off the bed. You may see a female on the redd, or maybe both sexes in the act of spawning. In those situations, I prefer to leave the fish alone. I would fish for the non-spawners. There are many of those.

After the spawn, temporarily, the redds remain visible, with no trout on them. Eggs are covered with gravel. The fish hatch from the eggs and remain in the gravel for days. This is not a good time to be wading on redds. You could crush the eggs or young trout. Silt may cover the redds eventually, making them difficult or impossible to see.

The trick for us is to avoid wading through spawning areas until the young trout have left the gravel. If I see areas where trout have spawned, I try to avoid wading through them. Tails of pools are likely spawning areas.

Fishermen may not have a significant negative impact on the spawn. Nobody knows for sure. We do know, floods destroy redds and young trout, and that affect is probably much more destructive to the spawn than people. Floods or high water at the wrong time makes a huge difference in young of the year trout mortality. Biologists verify that.

Still, it is good for all of us to know what is going on in our trout streams, wherever they are. Then we can make our own decisions about where and how to fish over the next few weeks.

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

Byron Begley
November 23, 2018

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com