Warm Weather is Here to Stay in the Smoky Mountains

Spring is always a period of ups and downs in the Smoky Mountains. Warm days are followed by frosty mornings. Sunny days can give way to cloudbursts of rain. Blown out streams quickly rebound to just about perfect. Now it finally looks like things are settling down after a March and April full of roller coaster changes.

Our friend Tom Rosenbauer had maybe everything spring has to offer while visiting the Smokies. Frosty mornings, warm sun, dry fly fishing, high water nymphing, and even a hail storm!

Tom Rosenbauer fishes a nice run of water with a dry fly

This spring has had even wilder temperature swings than usual. We wet waded Little River one weekend with temperatures in the 80’s, then had snow on the peaks of the mountains just before our friend  Tom Rosenbauer arrived only a few days later and chatted by the fireplace in the evening.

A solid rainbow trout with all the beauty you’d expect from a wild Smoky Mountain fish

Dry fly fishing has really come on strong over the past couple of weeks. When it came to rising trout, March wasn’t nearly so good as we expect. Fortunately we’ve seen that change. Don’t leave your nymphs at home though! Nymphing is still very effective and a dry dropper combination is often more effective that using only a nymph or dry fly. Plus, don’t forget, Smoky Mountain trout are among the most surface oriented fish you’ll find anywhere.

East Tennessee fly fisher Dale Jayne decided to wade wet last week on a beautiful spring day.

Foliage is dense in the low elevations of the Smokies and greening up quickly in the middle elevations. Our high elevations are a whole other climate, though, and just now starting to bud out. This is the most dynamic time of year with streams looking and feeling differently every week. There are also more good choices than almost any other time of year. Temperatures are cool enough for the large, low elevations streams to fish well yet warm enough for high elevation brook trout streams to be productive too.

Ben Blanton in his happy place casting dry flies to wild brook trout in a tumbling stream.

Brook trout are quite willing to come to a dry fly

We’re currently in that sort of weird moment where it’s a little bit warm to wear waders, but a little bit cool to wet wade. This is one of those personal decisions where you have to choose what’s best for you. Rainy days in spring are always a bit cool for wet wading, but sunny days when you hike in to a small stream tend to work out well.