It’s been pretty hot and relatively dry here in East Tennessee, but things have been much more varied in the Smokies. While the Tennessee side of the mountains was extremely dry in July, the North Carolina side was wetter with more moisture from thunderstorms. Water conditions improved all over at the end of the month […]
Hot Summer in the Smokies
It’s been a hot summer here in the Smokies. That means that some of the most popular streams aren’t fishing at their best. There are still plenty of productive streams to catch trout, you’ll just have to do a little bit of exploring. While some of the large streams are getting pretty warm, there are […]
A Wet May Sets Up the Smokies for Good Water Conditions in June
It’s been a pretty wet May here in the Smoky Mountains. We’ve been dodging the weather and choosing streams based on water levels. Fortunately we haven’t had any long term flooding, only typical high water that corrects to normal in a day or two. We shuffled a few guide days around but managed to get […]
Spring Arrives in the Smoky Mountains
Spring arrives today, and with it has come a hard freeze in the Smokies. That’s pretty typical this time of year. Sunny and 70 degrees one day, windy with rain the next, freezing the day after that…. All part of a Smoky Mountain spring. The first good hatches of the year have started and seemed […]
Fly Fishing in the Smokies Slows Down with the Cold Weather
It’s officially the slow season here in the Smokies. It’s nearly 8:00 AM when the sun peaks up over the mountains and it’s dark shortly after 5:00. Overnight temperatures here in Townsend are regularly in the 20’s and 30’s but much colder up on the crest of the Smokies. Water temperatures have been hovering somewhere […]
The Fall Fishing Season Comes to a Close
It was a busy November here in the Smokies with a roller coaster ride of temperatures. We had several mornings of hard frost with lows waaay down in the 20’s, but the weather was quite pleasant overall. There were even a couple of days with record high temperatures near 80 in the afternoon. The big […]
Autumn In The Smokies Is In Full Swing
The Smoky Mountains managed to miss out on the extreme heat experienced by so much of the nation this summer, but fall has certainly arrived. This past week the tops of the Smokies received the first frost of the season and we’ve even had one wake up temperature of 39 on our porch in Townsend. […]
Good Conditions Continue to Hold Up in the Smokies
Here we are in August and the good water conditions continue to hold up. August is generally the low point of the fishing season between spring and autumn. The best fishing in the Smokies is way up high during the hottest weeks of the summer. That’s the case this year, but good flows and relatively […]
Excellent Water Conditions Are Continuing Into the Heart of Summer
We’re well into the month of July and water levels and temperatures have remained excellent in the Smokies. We haven’t seen the usual pattern of afternoon thunderstorms that pop up randomly over the mountains between 3:00 and 7:00. That has happened on some days but we’ve seen more organized rain systems drop precipitation over the […]
Classic Spring Fly Fishing in the Smokies
It’s been a phenomenal spring season here in the Smoky Mountains. The forest is greening up more and more everyday and the slopes are carpeted with wildflowers. Bears have gone from absent to relatively common. And of course, dry fly fishing has come on strong… Water levels have been very good. We’ve seen very little […]