High Water and Cold Weather Across East Tennessee and the Smokies

Today is the fourth consecutive day of daily high flows for many rivers and streams across Southern Appalachia. Unfortunately this isn’t doing anything for fishing this week and we’ve been forced to cancel or reschedule several guide days.

One of my favorite things to point out to anglers is that you can fish with some success in high water. The same is true of dirty water as well as cold water. However, difficulty begins to escalate as you combine any of those factors. Our problem this week is that we have the trifecta, all of those conditions at once. The continual rain has kept the water from being truly cold, but we can expect that to change as the weather clears. The most recent forecast is calling for snow along the crest of the Smokies.

Flows on Little River in Townsend have been at or above 900 cubic feet per second for a few days and will likely be in that range for a few more. We don’t generally consider Little River fishable over 700 cfs.

You can always see current graphs of USGS flows from selected areas on our website here.

The tailwater situation isn’t a whole lot better. All of that water is headed downstream and that’s where it will find TVA reservoirs. Back in the old days an event like this may very well have flooded many areas, but the ability to retain water in some areas while flushing it out in others allows TVA to prevent flood disasters in many areas. Our problem as anglers is that it usually comes at the expense of fishable flows.

Right now it appears that the Watauga has the best flows for fishing, but that won’t last for long. TVA is allowing Watauga Lake to fill a bit so downstream areas can drain, but the flow forecast shows a sharp uptick in the water in coming days.

Next week is looking far dryer and sunny as well. It will likely take a few days for the creeks to fall back to fishy levels, but be patient. The fish haven’t gone anywhere and conditions look to improve dramatically next week. Forecast highs will be in the 50’s and there should be plenty of sunshine.

Flows on the tailwaters typically settle down by early December, but this year we’re not betting on it. All this extra water has most reservoirs either higher than they should be or inflows are higher requiring higher outflows. It may be about Christmas or later depending on future rainfall before the tailwaters start seeing wadeable flows again.