It seems like the seasons have been reversed over the past month here in East Tennessee. With unseasonably warm weather in the early and the middle part of March the water temperatures were already in the mid-sixties on the Little Pigeon River and it appeared that the spawn might be early this year. On April 6 the water temp. was 60 degrees and we caught 50 smallies that day. Then the bottom dropped out and we have had unseasonably cold weather over the last three days. We started fishing at 10 am and the water temperature was 48 degrees and the bite as you can well imagine was slow. As the water temperature increased into the low 50’s the smallie activity also increased as the day wore on. After an 8 hours of fishing we caught 23 smallies. The majority of them were between 16 and 19 in. We did manage to catch one fish that measured 20 1/4 in. The forecast tomorrow is for the high temps. to reach into the 70’s which should improve the fishing as the water temps. continue to climb.
River Smallie Fishing Rebounds After Cold Weather
