It’s that time of year when everyone seems to be busy with any number of things, but fly fishing doesn’t seem to be one of them. In our case our children have been in some holiday productions including chorale concerts and the Nutcracker. Between rehearsals and shows we’ve been coming or going somewhere nearly everyday. There’s nothing worse than living up to your commitments only to hear about how great the fishing has been. We’ll spare you this time. Fishing has pretty well sucked due to a variety of tough conditions.
Obviously cold, but beautiful nevertheless
Last weekend was exceptionally warm and we’re sure the mountain streams were fishing while we were running the shuttle to and from the Nutcracker, but we didn’t despair not making it to the water. Heavy rains from the previous day had streams extremely high.
That’s been the pattern lately; cold water if levels are good and high levels if the temperatures are up. This week the water is high but fishable, but getting colder all the time. In fact I can see light snow piling up on the Smoky Mountains from my window here at R&R Fly Fishing world headquarters in Townsend, Tennessee. There’s more light snow forecast for the Smokies this week. The weekend forecast is interesting…. One of those that bears watching with the possibility of heavy snow in the mountains.
All of the tailwaters have been running high. Norris, Cherokee, and Douglas Dams are all sluicing or spilling. That’s an extremely rare event and doubly so when you consider it’s late fall, not spring. The South Holston, Watauga, and Hiwassee are all negotiable for folks with boats, but waders are pretty much out of luck right now.
We’re looking at some more rain this weekend but the extended forecast is hinting at some warmer weather next week, so hopefully that will be the break we’ve been looking for. And we should find our way to the water since the Nutcracker wraps up this weekend.