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Welcome to the Fishing Report from Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. At 5:44 am, the temperature outside is 37.8 degrees.
Today will be cloudy and chilly. This weekend is a big question. We will see rain and snow here tomorrow. Sunday will bring rain and snow again. The Townsend weather forecast indicates lows around the freezing mark through the weekend. If that is correct, the roads should be fine.
The higher elevations, including Gatlinburg and other gateway towns are under a winter storm watch tomorrow night and Sunday. 6 to 15 inches of snow are possible from Saturday evening through Monday morning.
Asheville, North Carolina is under a winter storm warning. The warning states, “Total snow accumulations of 10 to 16 inches and ice accumulations of around one tenth of an inch expected”. The warning period is 7 pm Saturday through noon Monday.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PREDICTED HIGHS AND LOWS TODAY
LOCATION |
HIGH |
LOW |
TOWNSEND |
43 |
32 |
GATLINBURG |
43 |
32 |
ELKMONT |
41 |
30 |
CADES COVE |
41 |
32 |
NEWFOUND GAP |
38 |
32 |
MOUNT LECONTE |
32 |
28 |
CHEROKEE |
46 |
33 |
SMOKEMONT |
41 |
31 |
BRYSON CITY |
47 |
33 |
MAGGIE VALLEY |
43 |
31 |
COSBY |
43 |
31 |
Little River is flowing at 315 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 2.30 feet on the gauge. Median flow for this date is 199 cfs. The water temperature is 42.4 degrees and rising.
Little Pigeon River is flowing at 472 cfs, 1.12 feet on the gauge, and that compares to median flow of 330 cfs.
Oconaluftee River is flowing at 713 cfs or 2.18 feet at the Birdtown gauge. Median flow for this date is 408 cfs. The water temperature is 40.1 degrees and steady.
Cataloochee Creek is flowing at 148 cfs, compared to median flow of 76 cfs. The water temperature is 38.7 degrees.
I do not think fishing will be good today in the Smokies. You might have a shot at a post spawn brown trout. They may be hungry. Most trout will be hunkered down, unless the water temperatures rise, and I don’t think they will rise much.
Many of you are probably wondering about fishing this weekend. I wonder too. The way it looks now, and that may change, I would stay out of the higher elevations and maybe avoid the Park entirely. Keep an eye on the weather forecasts. When we are under a Winter storm watch, the mountains are not the place to be. Roads may close. Driving conditions may be negatively impacted. Driving could be dangerous inside the Park.
If you go fishing today, plan on using heavily weighted nymphs or streamers. The water temperatures are in the 30’s to low 40’s this morning and they are steady. Trout are usually sluggish when the water is that cold.
So, we wait to see what happens. I am planning to work at the store all weekend.
We do have a fly tying class scheduled for tomorrow. Dave will be watching the weather forecast and will contact students if the class is cancelled. That does not seem likely right now, but the weather could change for the worse, or, be better than expected.
Daniel and I tried to sit through a “webinar” on the subject of interstate sales tax yesterday. It started at noon. We were watching and listening on the big TV in the classroom. We could not understand hardly anything spoken.
Daniel looked at me and said, “They may as well be speaking in Chinese”. After a few minutes, a woman’s voice seemed to say, they are having sound problems. The webinar was cancelled. I bet thousands of people were watching this show. I felt sorry for the company conducting it. They promised to send us the link to a previously recorded version of the seminar.
Frankly, I thought, why didn’t they just do that in the first place.
Have a great day and thank you for being here with us.
Byron Begley
December 7, 2018
Respond to: byron@littleriveroutfitters.com
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