Tellico River Tennessee Fishing Report & Options for Selecting Flies: Email us at (sales@perfectflystore.com) with the dates you will be fishing and we will send you a list of our fly recommendations. We can get flies and gear to you within two to three business days from the time you place your order via Priority Mail. If you provide a budget for flies, we will select them to match the budget and get them to you on time for your trip. Your can also call us at 800-594-4726 and we will help you decide what flies and gear to use. All orders are shipped free in the U.S. If under a $100 order requiring Priority mail is a charge of only $8.10. Orders over a $100 are shipped free via Priority Mail.
We also have custom Perfect Fly selections in 3 different price ranges for this stream that come with or without fly boxes. They make excellent gifts. Click Here To Order or Call us at 800 594 4726 or email us at sales@perfectflystore.com.
Type of Stream
Freestone
Species
Brown Trout
Rainbow Trout
Brook Trout
(Wild)
Size
Medium to Large
Location
Southeastern Tennessee
Nearest Towns
Tellico Plains
Season
Year – round
Access:
Good
Special Regulations
Special Permit Required
Delayed Harvest Season
Non-Resident License
State of Tennessee
Weather
National Weather Service Link
Season:
The season is open year-round.
Spring:
Spring is the best time for fly fishing the Tellico River. That is when most of the hatches occur.
Summer:
The upper headwaters fish well during the Summer. We would suggest you avoid the lower section in late August and September.
Fall:
Autumn is the next, and maybe even the best, season to fish the Tellico River.
Winter:
Winter can be a good time to fish this stream, especially on those warm days. We have caught trout on this stream during cold January days.
Recommended Tackle & Gear
Fly Line:
4, 5 or 6 weight
Leaders:
Dry fly: 9 to 12 ft., 5 or 6X Nymphing:
71/2 ft., 3 or 4X, Streamers 0-2X
Tippets:
Dry fly: 5 or 6X, Nymphing: 3 or 4X,
Streamer 0-2X
Best Fly Rods:
Perfect Fly Supreme Four, Superb Five
or Ultimate Six
Fly Reels:
For 4/5/6 fly line
Fly Floatants and Misc Items:
Floatants, KISS Strike Indicators
Tools & Accessories:
Nippers, forceps, retractors, etc.
Copyright 2016 James Marsh
Fly Fishing The Tellico River Tennessee
The Tellico River is a freestone stream located in the Cherokee National Forest in southeast Tennessee. It’s headwaters begin in North Carolina and flows for almost twenty miles to Tellico Plains, Tennessee.
The main stem of the Tellico River is heavily stocked by the state and requires a special permit to fish. It’s a very large freestone mountain stream. It probably has a few
wild trout mixed in its waters, especially in its upper section. Its best assets are its smaller, wild trout headwater streams that contain native (and wild) brook trout, wild rainbow trout and wild brown trout.
The North River, shown in a couple of the images in this section, is an excellent little brown trout stream. It will fool anyone that’s not familiar with its large browns. It also has rainbows and its upper section has brook trout. Its headwaters are located just below the Cherohala Skyway and you can actually access the upper sections of the North river from the highway.
Bald Creek may be one of the best wild brown trout streams in Southern Tennessee. Its beautiful falls, which are located at the mouth of the creek, flows into the Tellico river in full view from the road. Above the falls, the river flows through a gorge located in the Bald River Gorge Wilderness. There’s a trail that follows the stream through the gorge. When fly fishing Bald Creek, you will find you will usually have it to yourself. The farther you
go up the gorge, the easier the going. Its lower end is very steep. At the upper end of the gorge, a distance of about four miles, the river changes to a more moderate declination.
Sycamore Creek is a great little native brook trout stream. This is a small, typical brook trout stream with short cascades and plunges above small pools of water that holds the brook trout. It begins near the fish hatchery where it’s followed by a forest service road. The lower end has a good population of wild rainbows.
There’s a “Delayed Harvest” season that starts on October first and goes through the middle of March. It’s strictly catch and release regulations with single hook artificial flies/lures only.
There’s a daily Tellico/Citico permit required to fish the Tellico River. It’s required in addition to your Tennessee fishing license.
Fly Fishing Guide to the Tellico River:
Fly fishing the Tellico River is first of all a matter of when and where.
Basically, the lower end of the main stem of the Tellico is large water with some large pools. It’s still mostly pocket water but there are some sections of long riffles. The upper end is much smaller, of course. The lower end of the tributaries are small, but nothing like the main river. In the little brook trout streams you will find a completely different type of stream. In other words, there are about three different types of water in this watershed. How you fish, depends mostly on the particular type of water and the time of year.
The stocked trout are fairly easy to catch. The large holdovers aren’t. The wild rainbows and browns in the North River aren’t easy to catch. High, fast water helps make it some easier because the trout have little chance to see the fly. When it isn’t high, or is low and slower, it’s far more difficult and requires much better imitations. The wild brook trout (some were stocked at least at one point) are easy to catch and the natives aren’t really picky either. The big challenge is catching the larger, wild brown trout. This is not all to do with the Tellico River. These same general statements are true wherever you fish.
We love fishing the North River and Bald Creek. We are not so fond of the main river. One reason is we spotted guys throwing trout from the top of a truck from about 100 feet above the water. They bounced when they hit. We don’t fish the stockers but if people are going to pay for catching them, they deserve workers stocking them that are not that lazy. To bad they didn’t work for my construction company years ago. They would last 5 minutes. Sorry but it gripes me to no end.
The North River was introduced to us by a man that had fished it all of his life. He is now deceased but it was a pleasure to hear its history and to learn some of what he knew about the Tellico and the North River. There are some big brown trout in the North River, and also in Bald Creek. They are very difficult to catch but I have seen browns in the North River over twenty inches in places I could almost jump over. One more tip on the North River. Don’t fish or stay in the campground during bear season, and I would guess its that way during deer and turkey season also. You may end up shot. Beware of hunting season.
Bald Creek takes some work to fish. It’s worth it to backpack into the stream if you can. This is an under-fished river. It is rough to fish, especially in its lower end. It’s very deep and requires some energy to get around much. It’s full of large brown trout also. Some guys I know rate it at the top of their list of streams for browns. I haven’t fished it that much, mostly the North River. We have fished it a dozen or more times.
Don’t get me wrong about the main river. The Tellico River has its share of huge brown trout too, but they are constantly hiding from the people sight seeing and fishing. They are very tough to catch except during the Fall spawning season when its much easier. We haven’t fished the delayed harvest area but we hear some good reports about it.
Hatches and Trout Flies for the Tellico River Tennessee
Beginning in late February, you can usually find some Blue-winged Olives hatching on a cloudy day. These will hatch off and on with different species showing up in the Spring, a few in the Summer, and again in the Fall for the bi-brood species. About the first of March, chances are good that the Blue Quill mayflies will start to hatch. The exact time can vary a couple of weeks or more if the weather is abnormally warm or cold.
Around the same time you will begin to see the Little Black Caddis or Brachcentrus caddis species. This is an excellent hatch on the Tellico. This hatch can actually provides more action and result in more trout caught than the Blue Quills or the Quill Gordons. From about the middle of the afternoon you can fish imitations of the pupa, then change to an adult pattern when the hatch gets to going good. After about an hour, the egg layers from previous hatches will return to deposit their eggs. The action can last until dark.
Almost at the same time the Blue Quills start hatching, the larger Quill Gordons begin to come off. The larger mayflies are easy to see and give the impression that the trout are really interested in them. Actually, they probably eat far more Blue Quills than Quill Gordons, but the Blue Quills are more difficult to imitate. You can match the flies alright, but you must fish the shallower, slower moving water where the trout get a good opportunity to examine your fly. It is easy to spook the trout feeding on the Blue Quills.
The Quill Gordons hatch on or near the bottom and may or may not get any attention from the trout on the surface depending on several factors. We have a “Perfect Fly” pattern just for this. It’s a wet fly that works great whether the trout are taking the duns on the surface or not.
The March Browns will show up but usually not in heavy concentrations. Soon after the Light Cahills will start hatching here and there but again, not in a concentrated manner. You can catch trout fishing these hatches, but not as consistently as you can on the Little Black Caddis, Blue Quills or Quill Gordons.
I haven’t mentioned the stoneflies but they are very plentiful in Tellico River. The first ones to appear are the Winter Stoneflies that show up in January. In April you will begin to see the Little Yellow Stoneflies, or Yellow Sallies. They will provide a lot of action late in the afternoons around sunset. Large, Giant Black stoneflies will start hatching in late April and hatch on through much of May. Golden stoneflies are present in some areas of the river.
In early to mid October, the water will cool down and some late season hatches of Blue-Winged Olives and Mahogany Duns will start to hatch. The Mahogany Duns, a sister to the early Blue Quills, usually hatch in large quantities and provide some great action. These are small mayflies, usually a hook size 18-20 but they will get the attention of the trout. Also, Little Yellow Quills will begin to hatch in the high elevations. Needle stoneflies also hatch in October through November.
During the month of June, grasshoppers, beetles, ants and inch worms, all terrestrial insects, become important food items for the trout. There’s few hatches occurring, so most anglers start using imitations of these terrestrials. The inch worms, or moth larvae, are especially important due to the large numbers of them in the forest of the park.
In addition to the terrestrial and aquatic insects, there’s a lot of other food for the trout. Small Crayfish is one of those items. Another one is the Sculpin. These small fish are abundant in most of the stream. Imitations of them can be very effective. The Black Nose Dace is another baitfish that’s important. Streamers imitating these and other minnows work great, especially when the water is slightly off color.
I didn’t mention it in the aquatic insect part above, but midges are abundant throughout the river. They can be very important when the water is cold and nothing else is hatching.
Imitations of the larva and pupa will catch trout anytime of the year.
Craneflies are everywhere water exist in the Tellico River. The larva and adults are
important insects to imitate. Hellgrammites, or the larva stage of the Dobsonfly, is another abundant insect that is in many of the streams.
We recommend our “Perfect Fly” imitations. They are the best, most effective flies you can purchase and use anywhere trout exist. We have specific imitations of everything that exist in the Tellico River in all stages of life that interest trout. If you haven’t already done so, please give them a try. You’ll be glad you did.