I had the great pleasure and opportunity to take some friends from the industry I worked in prior to starting River Smallie Adventures on a trip today on the French Broad and Little Pigeon. We had originally scheduled the trip for Tuesday, but it looked like we might be dealing with cold front conditions and the possibility of less than adequate water clarity, so they had the flexibility of moving the trip to today. The conditions were indeed much better and fortunately the smallies responded in a “big” way. The fishing was steady throughout the day as Greg and Scott caught most of their fish from what was now an almost gin clear Little Pigeon. For much of the day, the fish were a running a little small in the fourteen to seventeen inch range. This was the same trend I had experienced with the “other Greg” from my guide trip yesterday and I resigned myself to the fact that this was not going to be a big fish day. But the tables turned around six o’clock when I anchored in a spot that is well know to hold big pre-spawn smallies during this time of year. We had fished that same spot earlier in the day in the bright sunshine without a strike, but I had a feeling that it might fish better in the evening. And it did just that as soon as they made their initial casts Greg caught a beautiful smallie that was 21 ¼ in. long and weighed an even four pounds. But he wasn’t done yet when after setting his hook on the next fish you could tell this was different. It ran back and forth across the river bulldogging it deep refusing to budge an inch for quite some time. But as the fish tired and it started to make its way to the surface quite a distance from the boat in the relatively strong current we could start to make out the profile of what appeared to be a really nice smallie. As Greg slowly eased it to the boat we could now make out that it was one of those egg-laden football smallies that might be big enough to reach the five pound mark. After a long hard fought battle the fish finally tired and as she slid into the net it was much more apparent how big she really was. This pig of a smallmouth was 21 ½ in. long and tipped the scales at 5 lbs. and 4 oz. The picture of Greg and his trophy are included in this report. By days end, Scott and Greg had landed a total of 43 smallies which all (including the 5-4) were safely released back into the waters of the Little Pigeon. The fishing was great, but the best times were had in catching up with old friends and making new memories on this beautiful spring day here in East Tennessee.
River Smallie Adventures Fishing Report April 12, 2018
