Tipton Barn in Cade’s Cove

Great Smoky Mountains Fishing Report 9/30/16

The big news in the Smokies right now is the drop in temperatures all across the region. Lows dropped into the high 40’s across the Smoky Mountains overnight. That’s the coldest we have been in months! That’s great news to the trout angler as this helps bring stream temperatures down and triggers increased feeding activity from the trout!

October Caddis hatches are in full swing across the Smoky Mountains. Fishing dries has been very productive and of course are always a blast to fish! Love dry fly fishing this time of year in the Smokies. We had a good Caddis hatch on the Little River yesterday that brought fish to the surface for several hours. Trout were literally everywhere you looked gorging themselves on caddis. Air temps were cool and the wind picked up by late afternoon causing many terrestrials to fall in the water too. Once the winds picked up we quickly swithced over to bettles and ants and kept the dry fly bite going for hours on end.

It’s a chilly morning here and I’m sipping in coffee which I rarely do by the way, getting ready to hit the water in the NRS Clearwater Drifter and float the Tuckasegee River for Smallmouth Bass. If coffee tasted like it smells I’d probably enjoy the stuff more. My wife and daughter have all these foo-foo creamers and lattes that I’m never going to try. A revocation of ones man card might be in order if some of those were caught in any red blooded guide’s hands. So no thank you to the Creame Brûlée truffle whatever. I’ll take my coffee like my heroes Clint Eastwood and John Wayne did. Just black.

The highs for today are going to be around 70 for Gatlinburg and 68 for Bryson City. The weekend will be much of the same. Lows will hoover around mid 40’s across the region with highs only in the low 70’s  It’s a far cry from last weekends record setting heat wave. I’ll take it, finally some Fall weather to get the trout biting and the leaves changing. Rain chances are very slight over the next few days. 10% forecasted for each day through Wednesday. The rain we received helped but wasn’t enough to make any significant impact to the low water levels we have currently. The fishing is still very good and will only get better as Ocotber progresses. Our reservations are almost full for the next three weeks, so if you plan to come outside fish with us, please get your dates booked soon.

Traffic is already heavy around Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Although there’s not much leaf color yet we are starting to see an early crowd of folks traveling through taking pictures of the colors we do have.

We hope you have a great weekend in the Smoky Mountains!

We’ll see you on the water!