Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 4:34 am, the temperature is 38 degrees.

Today will be cloudy early before clearing and becoming sunny with a high temperature in the upper 50’s dropping to the middle 30’s tonight.

Tomorrow will be sunny with a high in the upper 50’s and a low in the middle 30’s overnight.

Sunday will be partly sunny with a chance for rain in the afternoon. The high temperature will be in the low to middle 50’s.

Little River is flowing at 85.7 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 1.54 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 180 cfs. The water temperature is 47.8 degrees this morning.

Some streams in the mountains are flowing close to normal for this date while others are flowing lower. The streams are chilly in the low elevations and cold in the higher elevations. Water temperatures are also falling right now.

If you go fishing in the Smokies today, wait a while to allow the streams to warm. That will not happen quickly and they won’t become very warm. But, you should be able to catch trout. Nymphs will likely work best. I would use weighted nymph rigs. The trout will be sluggish, at least early today. As the water temperatures rise the trout will become more active.

Fishing for stocked trout should be fair to good today in the low elevation rivers. The rivers are flowing higher than they were a few days ago. Nymphs, egg patterns, squirmy worms, mop flies or midge pupa are all good fly choices.

If you hope to fish on a tailwater today, there are some generation schedules you can work with. There are breaks in the generation during the afternoon at some dams. Click on the links below to visit the TVA website to see what tailwater fishing options you have.

We are holding some great FREE fly tying demonstrations this weekend. Clayton Gist will be tying tomorrow (Saturday) between 10 am and 2 pm. All you have to do is show up. I have known Clayton for over 25 years. He and I photographed and wrote a book for the Clinch River Chapter advanced fly tying class together. That took months. He’s a great guy and a very talented angler and fly tyer.

Kendall Mayers will be tying Sunday between 1 pm and 3 pm. Kendall is a professional fly fishing guide who works at Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain. He is an excellent fly tyer and a great guy to be around. You will like him. He loves to fly fishing for about anything that swims.

Our Winter Free Fly Tying Demonstrations have been very popular activities for over 25 years at Little River Outfitters. We’ve almost always held them and they are always FREE. Just show up. The list of demonstrations is under construction on our website but you can see what will be offered through the middle of January by CLICKING HERE.

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

Byron Begley
November 24, 2023  

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com