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 […]
The Ups and Downs of Spring Fly Fishing in the Smokies
Fly fishing conditions have been up and down this spring in the Smoky Mountains. We came out of the winter season exceptionally dry with extreme wildfire risk across Southern Appalachia. Believe it or not, we had humidity readings that would be taken for the Arizona desert, not the Smoky Mountain rain forest. Fortunately, things have […]
Transitioning to Winter in the Smokies
It’s safe to say we’ve crossed the line from autumn to winter here in the Smoky Mountains. We’ve had to scrape frost from the windshield before taking our son to school in the morning. Our view of Thunderhead Mountain and the Smokies’ crest has been white too. We had a little snow up high last […]
Fall Fishing Plus News About Effects from Flooding
It’s been an exceptionally busy fall season for us guiding fly fishers here in the Smokies. It’s hard for us to believe just how quickly things have moved. It seems like only a few weeks ago we were hosting our group of anglers in Yellowstone, but that was in early September and we’ve barely rested […]
Late Summer Adventures Before Autumn Arrives
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 […]