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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:13 am, the temperature outside is 51.3 degrees.

Today will be sunny and cooler. It will be windy in the high elevations. Cold air moves in tonight and will remain through the weekend. Not much if any precipitation is predicted until Saturday. There is a chance for snow Sunday.

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PREDICTED HIGHS AND LOWS TODAY

Little River is flowing at 693 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.98 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 208 cfs. The water temperature is 51.3 degrees this morning.

Little Pigeon River is flowing at 1,130 cfs or 2.96 feet on the Sevierville gauge. That compares to median flow of 234 cfs.

Oconaluftee River at the Birdtown gauge is flowing at 1,410 cfs which compares to 359 cfs median flow. The water temperature is 47.8 degrees this morning.

Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 227 cfs compared to 67 cfs median flow. The water temperature is 46.2 degrees.

As you can see, stream flows remain high today. Be careful wading if you go. I would try to find a smaller stream that has receded to a more wading friendly level. Anthony Creek at the Cades Cove picnic area is one we send customers to when the water is high. Or, you could stand near the bank in other streams and high stick heavily weighted nymphs.

Water temperatures are pretty good for now, especially in the low elevations. The temperatures will plunge tonight and remain cold through the week. Fishing will slow as the artic air drops the water temperatures.
This past weekend would have been perfect for fishing in the Smokies if the water flows were not so high. Water temps were excellent for early December. I saw terrestrial insects flying around at the shop yesterday. It felt like a Spring day.

I know several people who switched to spinning rods and went fishing in the Smokies. That is a common practice when the water is high during the Winter months.

Paula and I both heard an owl outside our bedroom at about 4:30 this morning. It was not the normal screech owl we hear occasionally. I don’t know what it was. It was an odd sound, that had to be an owl. We’ll never know.

I was looking out our back door into the forest at about dusk a few years ago. A great horned owl landed in a tree, maybe 20 feet away from where I was standing, right in plain view. That was the first and only great horned owl I have ever seen. It was a beautiful bird, and large.

A barred owl flew by me along our lower driveway late one day, years ago. That was another sighting I’ve had only once.

I listened to owls just now on YouTube. I think what we heard this morning was a great horned owl.  

We are busy at the shop. Customers are ordering gifts and gift cards through the mail.

We are also busy entering inventory items in our new point of sale computer system. We have to scan each item, make some entries, and check it off a list. I’m working on the fly tying department, specifically materials and tying tools from Wapsi.

I finished yesterday’s fishing report, took a shower, and was at the shop at 7:30 am, getting this stuff entered. I’ll do the same today. We will go live with this system January 2nd. That may seem far off for some, but not to me.

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

Byron Begley
November 3, 2018

Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com