I have had the pleasure of guiding Greg and his Uncle Milo for river smallies in East Tennessee for over four years now. Milo made a trip from South Florida to tackle some of those post spawn French Broad River smallies. Due to the excessive amount of rain we had this spring and Douglas Dam operating two generators or more for the majority of the time there have been only a handful of times when I have been able to fish the French Broad this season. Fortunately, today was one of those days when we able to fish some of my favorite spots for big river smallies. We had to start early at 7:00 am to get in 6 hrs. of fishing before TVA started generating in the early afternoon. The smallie bite was strong the first three hours of the trip and the big fish were actively feeding. Of the fifteen smallies they caught four of them were between 19 and 19 3/4 in. Milo caught his share of some of the bigger fish. A picture of him holding the biggest smallie of the trip is included in this report. As it happens in the fickle world of fishing the bite tailed off and died the last three hours of the trip. Greg and Milo have fished with me enough to know that sometimes you’re lucky enough to catch a window of feeding activity like we did early and then for some inexplicable reason the fish just turn off. Greg and Milo are a couple of great guys to fish and I always look forward to our time spent on the water pursuing river smallies.
River Smallie Adventures Fishing Report May 18, 2020
