Last week creeks in the Smoky Mountains were low and we were experiencing record heat. Furthermore, the TVA tailwaters like the Clinch & Holston where blowing enough water through the turbines to keep us from even bothering to show up.
Here were are just about seven days later and our trout streams are full of water, temperatures have struggled to get into the 70’s, and our tailwaters have schedules that seem to be arranged around fishing.
The following photo was taken last weekend only a few minutes before the rain started to fall…
This is the same spot four days later.
You can be sure the trout are much happier!
Tailwaters
We haven’t been on any of the tailwaters in a while because generation schedules were so bad, but that seems to have changed. TVA has managed to draw down lake levels on Norris and Cherokee reservoirs and the current generation schedules allow ample opportunity for either wading or floating. This will likely continue through the fall, but another tropical weather system like Lee could certainly mean more water and change that.
TVA will continue to have recreational generation schedules on weekends through October that take fishermen into account. This is relatively solid and will only be changed in the event of extreme water conditions.
