The Great Smoky Mountains region is fishing red hot this month! Streams are fishing near their peak for the Spring season right now. Temperatures have been great and the weather has been near perfect for April in the Smokies.
Tuckasegee River Fishing
The Tuckasegee River is just hitting its peak and will fish strong through the end on May for trout. April was stocked heavily with Rainbow, Browns and Brook trout. The next stocking of the Tuck in Bryson City will be May 6th, the river
will get another 13,000 trout per mile at that point. You just cant wrong out here right now. The Tuckasegee is definitely king of the southern tailwaters right now. Water levels have been perfect for floating and wading most days. Hatches have been consistent and heavy in the evenings. Right now were still seeing March Browns mid morning until mid afternoon. Caddis are all over the place and hatch all day long. Stoneflies are the best Spring hatch on the Tuck, we’re seeing brown stones, Salmonflies; yes we have Salmonflies, little Yellow Sallies just started this past week. Eastern Green Drakes are starting to show up mid mornings now and of course Blue Winged Olives are hatching on any cloudy days we have. We are catching some monster Browns on the lower stretch of the Tuck near Bryson City along with some great Rainbows. Smallmouth bass have started making their way up from Fontana Lake and were starting to catch them with regularity.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The Smoky Mountains National Park fishing is really taking off! The Smokies are expected to hit their peak by the second week of May. Dry fly fishing has been incredible. Each day were seeing good hatches of March Browns, Dark Hendricksons, Blue Winged Olives and tons of Caddis. The past couple weeks we have started seeing some Yellow Sallies starting to make their appearance and a few Green Drakes hatching around mid morning and hatching up to dark. Fish are coming up to dries from early morning until dark. Smokies favorites such as the Oconaluftee and Deep Creek are fishing great on the North Carolina side of the park. Tennessee favorites include the Little River, Abrams Creek and West Prong which are all fishing well too.
Fontana Lake
Fontana Lake is fishing incredible right now. Smallmouth, Largemouth and Spots are all starting to spawn. Water temps are in the upper 50’s on Fontana right now. Walleye are really moving up into the headwaters of the Tuck and Little Tennessee rivers. White Bass are also in the river mouths and providing some killer top water action.
The weather for this weekend looks great. Scattered rain on Friday with highs in the mid 60’s. Saturday is going to perfect, sunny and 75. Sunday is low chance of scattered light rain possible with temps in the upper 70’s.
Hope you all have a great weekend.
We’ll see you on the water!
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