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Low water levels and high summer temperatures during the continuing drought haven’t left fish populations in the Little River unscathed.

“It’s depressing, very depressing,” said Jeff Hall, president of the Little River Chapter of Trout Unlimited. “I was hoping that perhaps the drought might be over or at least diminished since August, but it turns out, to my worst fears, it’s gotten worse.

There is a big concern with the historically low water. It hinders me from fishing because it doesn’t motivate me to see a friend, the Little River, in such poor shape.”

Data coming from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where researchers recently completed surveys of fish populations living in the various streams and waterways in the park, indicates that fish are still being found in more-or-less normal numbers, but the impact is being seem in other ways.

“What we found was the density of fish per mile in the streams overall was about average, but the number of larger fish was very low, which is not surprising,” park spokesman Bob Miller said. “The water is not only lower, but it’s warmer, too.

Warmer water has lower dissolved oxygen than colder water. That puts stress on fish and older fish don’t tolerate stress as well.

“The numbers are there. We’re estimating that if we get back on a normal rain schedule, we’ll get back to a normal distribution of sizes, but it will take a couple of years.”

The drought has not had any visible effect on other wildlife populations within the park, Miller said.

“Larger animals will move wherever the water is,” he said. “You are not going to have deer or bears dying of thirst.”

One aspect that seems to be mostly unscathed by the drought is the fall foliage colors, despite earlier concerns to the contrary.

“At Newfound Gap, it is at a peak right now and it’s terrific,” Miller said. “We should see our peak in lower elevations in 10 days to two weeks.”

The park is buffered somewhat from the regional drought.

“Even though our rainfall is down between 25 and 35 percent, depending on the location in the park, that’s 25 percent of a much bigger number,” Miller said. “Mount LeConte is down 25 percent, but Mount LeConte gets 80 inches of rain each year. It’s not as dry here.”

Hall, however, said there is no escaping the toll of the drought on fish in the river.

“There will be a significant fish kill off of this drought,” he said. “The real impacts to the trout populations are drought and floods. If the water level is reduced by 50 percent, likely the trout population gets reduced by 50 percent as well. Probably if one of our chapter members went fishing, he probably wouldn’t notice a decrease in the population. There are plenty of trout still available, but it will have a significant impact. It’s very worrisome.”