Back in May of 2020 I took Mike and his son A.J. and A.J.’s high school buddy Tom fishing for river smallies. They had a successful day on the Little Pigeon River and caught over thirty smallies as well as a few fish over twenty inches. A.J. had a fall break from school during the week of October 11 and Mike wanted to spend some quality time in the outdoors with his son before he heads off to college next year. I shared with Mike that the French Broad has not been fishing well lately due to the rain that fell in North Carolina from the remnants of Hurricane Delta and from TVA releasing water at Douglas Dam to drop Douglas Lake to full winter pool. The predicted generation schedule forecasted at Douglas Dam would be 18,000 cfs during most of the week. My clients catch fish when they are generating at those volumes. However, it is usually it is a mixed bag of fish that includes a few smallies. Also, the numbers of fish that are caught are lower than in the spring. Mike said that he understood that the conditions were less than ideal but he still wanted to give it a try. What was ideal was the weather. Beautiful sunny skies with high’s in the 70’s and light winds greeted us as we started fishing in the early afternoon. Even though TVA was indeed generating at 18,000 cfs Mike and AJ managed to scratch out seven fish during the four hour trip. They caught a variety of species with A.J. catching the biggest fish of the day. A nice eighteen inch smallie. A picture of A.J. with that fish is included in this report. Mike and A.J. are couple of great guys and I thoroughly enjoy guiding and having them on the boat. I look forward to our next trip on the water.