Fly and Gear ordering and delivery: We can get flies 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. Please see the bottom of this column for ordering options.
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
Small
Location
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park
Nearest Towns
Knoxville, Tennessee
Townsend, Tennessee
Season
Year – round
Access:
Good
Special Regulations
None
Non-Resident License
Either the State of Tennessee or the
State of North Carolina
Weather
National Weather Service Link
Additional Information:
Fly Fishing Smoky Mountains
Season:
The season is open year-round.
Spring:
Spring is the best time to fly fish the West Prong. That is when most of the hatches occur and when the trout are most active.
Summer:
The upper headwaters fish well during the summer. We would suggest you avoid the lower section.
Fall:
Autumn is the second best season to fish the West Prong. It is the most scenic time to fish for certain.
Winter:
Winter can be a good time to fish the lower section of the stream, especially on those warm days. We have caught trout on this stream during January.
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.
Fly and Gear ordering and delivery:
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.
Copyright 2016 James Marsh
Fly Fishing The Little River (West Prong)
GSMNP Tennessee
The West Prong of the Little River is a small tributary stream of East Prong of Little River, or the main river which is usually just called Little River. It is one of the most overlooked trout streams in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One reason is that it is probably just too small and accessible in its lower part to be considered a good place to fish. It runs along Laurel Creek Road which is the road to the popular “Cades Cove” in the park.
The West Prong of Little River has one main tributary, Laurel Creek, which is also a decent small stream fishery itself. It can be easy accessed along the Cades Cove Road.
This little stream is rarely over twenty feet in width and usually about twelve feet or less. Short, upstream cast are best. You do not get a good drag free drift. All the trout in Great Smoky Mountains National Park are wild and wise, so good presentations are essential.
The upper section of the West Prong is located off Laurel Creek Road. It is accessible only by hiking in. The West Prong Trail offers the easiest access. This part of the stream provides the best fishing but the portion of the stream along the road is also good and
not fished often.
The fish are almost all rainbow trout although there may be a few browns in the lower part of the stream near the Y. Like many streams in Great Smoky Mountains
National Park, there are brook trout present in Its headwaters
.Fly Fishing Guide to the West Prong of Little River:
Fly fishing the West Prong of Little River is strictly small stream fishing. The stream is probably twenty feet wide at its widest point and averages even less.
In places, access is difficult. You must do some crawling over large rocks and wading up the streambed to progress upstream in places. There are some angler made trials In the lower part where the stream first leaves the road. The stream isn’t any easier to fish there than it is far upstream where you access it via the West Prong Trail. We first though this area received far less pressure since it take a short hike to get there but we have actually yet to see the first angler on the lower section along the road. We think anglers just assume that it isn’t any good, for some reason. If you just want to test the fly fishing in the West Prong, you can do that easily by fishing the lower part of the stream anywhere along the road. Its small rainbows are usually very aggressive and fairly easy to catch. We would suggest the lower part except from the middle of May to the middle of October.
The stream is heavily covered with tree limbs and bushes. There is a canopy of cover over
the stream just about its entire length except along the road. Casting can be a problem but this is typical of all the small stream in the Smokies, especially the small brook trout streams. As with all the streams in the Smokies, when you are fishing dry flies, short upstream cast are best. Usually, if you can find some deeper runs, the “high stickin” method of nymph fishing works best.
Even though the trout feed highly opportunistic in this little stream and even though attractor flies will work, you are far better off fishing specific imitations of something that hatches or is about to hatch. If nothing is hatching or about to hatch, fishing imitation of the aquatic insects and other food that is most likely available is more productive than generic or attractor flies.
The stream in the image directly above is as wide as it ever gets. Most of it is much smaller, more like the image on your above right. Even though it is small, it seems to be full of willing rainbow trout. We have caught as many as twenty or thirty within two or three hours on this stream on a few occasions. It is a fun stream to fish because you can usually catch several trout.
Hatches and Trout Flies for the West Prong of Little River GSMNP
Tennessee
Even though the West Prong of the Little River is a small stream, it has about all of the
hatches of aquatic insects that any of the larger stream has, with the exception of Abrams
Creek. The Smokies have a huge diversity of insects but they are not that high in quantities of insects with the exception of a very few hatches.
Beginning in late February, you can usually find some Blue-winged Olives hatching on a
cloudy day. 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 along the rocks and
banks. These can actually provide more action and result in more trout caught than the Blue Quills or Quill Gordons. From about the middle of the afternoons 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. This can really turn on the trout and the anglers. They actually turn on the anglers more than they do the trout. 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 is a wet fly that works great whether the trout are taking the duns on the surface or not.
The March Browns will show up on the Middle Prong but not in heavy concentrations. Soon 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 the West Prong of Little
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.
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.
During the month of June, grasshoppers, beetles, ants and inch worms, all terrestrial
insects, become important food items for the trout. Theres 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, theres a lot of other food for the trout. Small Crayfish is one of those items. Another one is 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 is 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 park. 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 park. 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 park’s streams.
We recommend our “Perfect Fly” imitations. They are the best, most effective flies you can purchase and use anywhere trout exist. If you haven’t already done so, please give them a try. You’ll be glad you did.