After two weeks of limited opening Great Smoky Mountains National Park will open more areas tomorrow, Saturday May 23, 2020. However, several areas and facilities are remaining closed.
The most noteworthy areas opening up are Tremont, Greenbrier, Big Creek, Roaring Fork, and Cosby Creek. All trails will be open as well. Up to this point Laurel Falls, the Chimneys and Alum Cave Bluff trails were closed. These trails are always exceptionally crowded and it is recommended folks either get there very early or late for social distancing considerations.
There are still some noteworthy closures that are important to be aware of. These include Elkmont, lower Abrams Creek Road, Balsam Mountain Road, Cataloochee, Rich Mountain Road, Straight Fork Road, Heintooga Round Bottom Road, and Forge Creek Road. All campgrounds will remain closed as well. Even though these are closed to vehicle traffic THEY ARE OPEN FOR PEDESTRIANS AND BICYCLES.
Lets Talk Fishing!
Expect some wet conditions and at least slightly high water conditions in the Smokies over the next week. Even as I’m writing this the sky has grown dark and big drops are falling. Dry fly fishing has been really good over the past couple of weeks. In fact, we fished some dropper rigs this past week and there were hours at a time when the fish just flat out ignored the nymphs to always take the dry flies.
Phil Reiger hooked up with one of many rainbow trout on a dry fly earlier this week
Having said that, we wouldn’t recommend leaving the nymph box at home. High water often favors nymph fishing so you should be prepared. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to have a few small streamers on hand. Dirty water right after a rain isn’t a bad time to try a streamer and you might be surprised at what grabs it.
Stonefly nymphs are always a good choice during high water in the summer
There will be more water available now that more of the park will be open, but we’ve been able to find plenty of privacy so far. It hasn’t seemed like there have been all that many people out, just that those who are have been congregating in all the usual locations. As always, expect Cades Cove to be crowded but there are so many places to find water with few if any people out.
Michael Dennis enjoying a boulder strewn piece of stream
Tailwaters
It’s getting to be a pretty old description, but expect high water on the East Tennessee tailwaters. TVA usually has “recreational” water releases on weekends, particularly holiday weekends. Unfortunately river and reservoir levels are so high that TVA can’t afford to lower the river levels in order to curtail flood threats.
It seems like the Holston and Clinch River watersheds have the most water right now. Don’t expect any breaks in the flows on the Clinch, South Holston, Holston, or Watauga Rivers. Experienced floaters should be able to find some fish on the South Holston and Watauga, but flows are still extra high on those waters.
The further south you go the better things get. It looks like waders might get a small early morning window on the Hiwassee and the river is at a good level for floating. The Toccoa in north Georgia has had the best flows we’ve seen for waders.
Zeke Culbreath says
Just had a few very nice days on the water. Trout were extremely active on all the little river drainage as well as west prong little pigeon, and around Smokemont. Just out of curiosity, what is the biggest wild rainbow you’ve seen come out of the smokies? I’ve been fishing the little river area (in the park) and never seen a bow over 12 inches. I recently started exploring other areas and went fishing upstream from the Smokemont campground and caught a 16 inch rainbow and had the time of my life trying to land that thing. It fought harder than any other fish I’ve tangled with. Everything I saw pointed to it being a wild trout, but is there any way it could have been a stocker that made it upstream from Cherokee, or is it just that odd one in a thousand catch?
Ian says
Hi Zeke,
We work with the fisheries biologists at GSMNP quite a bit and wild rainbow trout in the Smokies are exceptionally rare. The reason has to do with water chemistry that doesn’t allow for a trout’s skeleton to grow very large. The brown trout will grow larger because they get a calcium boost from eating other fish. The calcium derived from other fishes’ skeletons allow their own to grow larger.
The Oconaluftee watershed has a number of stockers running around, although you don’t see very many beyond the park visitor center. We’ve caught them on that river upstream of Smokemont and even a few miles up Bradley Fork. The size tends to be the biggest identifier among others. We’ve even caught brook trout over 12″ around Smokemont that were certainly stockers. We’ve also caught fish like this on Deep Creek and Straight Fork too as they are stocked downstream of the park line.