Most Area Streams Fishable After Heavy Rains

Last night was certainly an interesting one here in East Tennessee as we had strong winds, heavy rain, and even some hail in a few locations. The “on the scene” report from the Smokies is that most of the streams are in good shape. The bulk of rain fell west of the mountains in Tennessee. Over in North Carolina there was some heavy rain around Franklin, but most of the mountain streams didn’t see the downpours that fell on much of the Tennessee Valley.

Streams in the Smokies are full but mostly fishable today

Streams are rising but for the most part we wouldn’t use the term “blown out”. Cataloochee Creek appears to be an outlier here as the graph shows it came up dramatically. The Oconaluftee also came up, but is already subsiding. The location of that stream gauge isn’t in the park so it’s hard to know just how high the water upstream of Cherokee is, but the smaller streams should certainly be fishable. As always, a few of the tailwaters will have some stained to muddy water in some locations. The South Holston can get muddy from several tributaries along its length. The Clinch is rarely dirty upstream of the I-75 bridge and the Watauga will also have some clean water up closer to Wilbur Dam. We’ll keep you posted but you can always see real time stream levels on our site here.