It’s not something you’d expect in the Southeast in August, but we’re digging out our waders for the cool, wet weather that’s headed our way. The forecast for Saturday in Townsend is a rainy high of 72 degrees. We can tell you from experience that if you head on up to Elkmont it will be […]
The Best All Round Week of Fishing We’ve Seen This Year
It’s been a tough season. Anyone who follows fly fishing around the Southeast knows that, but we’re glad to say that we just had what may have been the best few days we’ve seen all year long. Tailwater flows are great, smallmouth bass are looking to the surface for poppers, and trout in the Smokies […]
Great Flows & Sketchy Weather
Flows have been excellent almost anywhere you look around East Tennessee and the Smoky Mountain region. Streams in the Smokies are looking good and the fish are happy. Our local tailwaters, most notably the Clinch, have flows that accommodate both waders and floaters. The only trouble has been spotty rain and showers. While the wet, […]
Better Late Than Never – Water Conditions Pretty Close to Normal
It had to happen at some point. Water levels throughout East Tennessee and the Smoky Mountain region are finally pretty close to normal. If you want to nitpick and point out that stream flows are still way above average you’d be right, but they’re finally below the 75% mark and well below daily records. We […]
Report from the Field: Cataloochee Creek
With school starting up next week we looked up from work to see we hadn’t taken a family camping trip this summer. Most of the summer vacationers have already started to thin out here in the Smokies and it seems that many might have simply given up on account of all the rainy days, so […]
Conditions Close to Normal
It’s been a wild fishing season across the Southern Appalachian region with high water, or sometimes worse, good water levels that have been muddy. Fortunately, it looks like things are beginning to resemble something like normal this week. Well… Normal might be pushing it, but let’s say fishable and call it good. East Tennessee just exceeded […]
Improving Conditions
After some more rain over the weekend rivers are starting to shape up once again across East Tennessee and the Smoky Mountain region. We started the week with high water once again but the mountain streams have recovered nicely and the next couple of days look pretty nice, although the forecast for the weekend… Did […]
Thunderstorm Season in the Smokies
It’s been a wet season across the Southeast and even wet by the rainforest standard of the Great Smoky Mountains. Fortunately we’ve seen an end to the stationery fronts pulling tropical moisture to us the way metal shavings are drawn to a magnet. Even though things have dried out substantially we’re in the middle of […]
The Guides Apprentice
As you might imagine many of our family outings involve fly fishing. We live within a few minutes of a national park filled with hundreds of miles of wild trout streams. Furthermore, we have to pass or cross pretty good smallmouth bass river to go anywhere. Add in the fact that we have numerous lakes […]
An overview of water conditions around the Smokies & East Tennessee
High water became a bit of a regular thing around here and after nice weekend in the Smokies it’s pretty obvious that most anglers have all bit given up on fishing. You can tell because there were very few fishermen out on the river. Fortunately it looks like we’ve turned the corner and water conditions […]