Over the past several weeks and due to the drought the water conditions have been relatively stable which bodes well when fishing this section of the French Broad River. Meaning that very little generation had been occurring at Douglas Dam from the morning into the early afternoon hours. Good news for guides like me who would prefer to fish when the flow is 2000 cfs or less. For some reason (and only they know for sure) TVA started running two generators or more from the mid-morning hours and into the early afternoon over the past several days. They were averaging around 9000 cfs during that time. It is certainly fishable at any time except for when the water is dirty. However, today’s water release did present its challenges. I was honored to take some neighbors of mine on this river smallie adventure. Marcie and Donovan live directly across the street from me. One day a couple of months ago Marcie approached me and said that she would like for me to take her father (Bill) on a guided fishing trip as a Father’s Day present and that Donovan would be joining as well.The morning of their trip I decided to catch that 9000 cfs release of water at Douglas Dam and drift live bait directly below the dam itself. The first few drifts yielded some strikes and hookups, but no fish were brought to the boat. I was fishing with the smallest sinker as possible and they were getting more snags and break offs than I like, so I decided to free line the bait. On our next drift both anglers hooked up almost right away. Donovan’s fish pulled loose, but Bill was able to land a dandy white bass. The picture of Bill proudly holding his white bass is included in this report. After releasing the fish and while I was starting to rebait their hooks I said “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we needed to continue to downsize our weights to nothing to start catching fish”. Bill with his calm demeanor replied “I know that you are not aware of this, but there is a rocket scientist in the boat”. To my surprise I said “Really?” as I looked at Donovan for confirmation. He nodded his head as he reeled in his bait and replied “He has a PHD”. You never know who you’re guiding and I try to respect peoples privacy and not ask too many personal questions. Bill has been retired for many years and managed rocket programs for a major American aerospace and defense contractor. He has a Top Secret Clearance and to this day cannot discuss many of the projects he worked on. Speaking of Bill, we were about a minute into our next drift when I looked up and saw that his rod was bent double and the line was screaming off his reel. I hurried to the bow where he was standing and was shocked to see that he was seconds away from being completely spooled. I decided that I did not have enough time to run back to the stern and fire up the motor and start chasing the fish upstream. As the line continued to burn off the reel I gently grabbed the rod with one hand to make sure it was a fish and not a snag. I could feel that characteristic pulsing movement on the other end of the line. It indeed was a fish and it was a big one. All of a sudden the line went slack. The fish was gone. It was nothing that Bill did as an angler. There are a lot of rocks and sharp ledges where the fish broke the line. I was heart broken for him. He looked at me with a smile and exclaimed “We made a memory today!” Here was a “glass have full” kind of guy which made me feel a little better about what just had happened. There are some big stripers and catfish that haunt those waters below Douglas Dam. I assume it is one of those behemoths that took the bait and left us wondering kind of fish it was and how much it weighed? I decided to leave the dam as the bite started to slow and fish some other spots downstream. They managed to catch a few smallies before we had to call it a day. However, while we were quietly drifting down the Little Pigeon River with no bites or a fish on the line in over an hour Bill calmly said “This is the most relaxed and at peace I have been in months”. It reminded this guide not to forget that it isn’t always about the fishing…
River Smallie Adventures Fishing Report October 19, 2019
