It remains brutally cold here in the Smoky Mountains, but I do have some good news to relate. The Nantahala River is finally fishable again. Duke Power has finally gotten Nantahala Lake low enough to cease spilling. While this is good news from the perspective of wading, you should expect water temperatures to be right around freezing at this time since all water is coming from freestoners, not the bottom of the lake.
Charity and I ventured out once again yesterday for a quick fishing trip. We drove up to Cades Cove and headed straight for the spring creek section of Abrams Creek. This is the only local stream with water temperatures in the 40’s right now. All the other streams in the Smokies are iced over.
This was what we saw along the West Prong of Little River on the way to Cades Cove
Charity lit it up almost immediately by landing a 10″ rainbow trout. I headed for another run of water and didn’t do near as well. After about 45 minutes we decided to head back for Townsend and spend the rest of the afternoon in a warmer place. It was 23 while we fished and we had to knock ice out of the guides on about every sixth or seventh cast.
The view of Thunderhead Mountain from Townsend, TN
More cold weather along with some snow is in the forecast for the next few days, but it looks like next week will begin to warm up a little bit.
We’re packaging up our Fly of the Month today to ship out to subscribers. Last month was the Rubber Leg Tellico Nymph and this month is the Z-lon Nymph. In fact, Charity caught her fish on a Z-lon Nymph yesterday on Abrams Creek.
