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 […] The post Late Summer Adventures Before Autumn Arrives appeared first on R and R Fly Fishing ..read more

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 many small stream options available. A typically colorful wild Smoky Mountain rainbow trout We’re in our typical phase of late afternoon and evening thunderstorms, but those are erratic and distribute the water somewhat unevenly. This means that while many streams are low and warm, others will be ..read more

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 everything to work out. A glorious day of fly fishing in the Smokies Dry fly fishing has been pretty good lately, but it’s May. If we don’t have some dry fly fishing to talk about, something would be VERY wrong. Even so, we’re relying on nymphs a good bit as well. That’s primarily because of str ..read more

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. We’re seeing the first real hatches of spring, sporadic as they are The first good hatches of the year have started and seemed to take their sweet time arriving this year. The earliest hatches are always a bit unreliable. Relatively heavy one day and sparse the next. Sometimes the trout are really on them with only a few on the water while somewhat ignorant o ..read more

January was a cruel month for those of us who enjoy spending time outdoors and on the streams of the Great Smoky Mountains. While we didn’t see record cold or unprecedented snowfall, we did experience a lengthy cold snap coupled with roads closed for icy conditions. And that was AFTER an extremely rare high water event! Icy conditions at Tremont this January January is always the toughest month of the year, but we can usually expect some improvements in February. That’s not to say spring fishing is here, but there should be some negotiable periods with good flows and and water temperatures ..read more

A beautiful autumn day in the Smokies even if streams were low. 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 story was record dry conditions. September and October were the two driest consecutive months on record here with just a tick over 1″ of rainfall. Considering some of the droughts we’ve seen in the past that is pretty impressive. Stre ..read more

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. Water temperatures have fallen way down into the 50’s and the foliage is definitely changing colors A really nice wild rainbow trout caught on a small beadhead nymph fished under a dry fly. We were wet wading up until last week, but pulled the waders out this week. Next week we’ll see some daytime high ..read more

We’re on the backside of summer, at least as far as vacation schedules go. We’re still experiencing summer weather but that will all change soon. A few buckeyes and acorns have started dropping, but those aren’t the only signs of autumn. Bull elk on the North Carolina side of the Smokies have moved down from the high ridges down into the valleys with the cows. Bugling will be heard regularly wherever they’re found. Smoky Mountain Bull Elk recently seen on the Carolina side of the park Wet wading is still the way to go, but we’re usually looking at waders by the second week of October if not ..read more

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 mild temperatures have kept the range of viable options better than they sometimes are in August. View of the Smokies from the Foothills Parkway after a rainy afternoon There have been several major rain events in the Smokies and the forecast seems to indicate more are on the way. Pop up afternoon ..read more

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 region. Excellent water conditions are persisting well into the summer this year Weather has remained relatively mild in the Smokies while most of the South has been in the grip of a heat wave this summer. Morning temperatures in Townsend have been anywhere from 6 ..read more