Asheville Fly Fishing Company

Asheville Fly Fishing Company is a guide owned operation working out of downtown Asheville, and the French Broad is the river it fishes closest to home. The company’s French Broad page focuses on the big water below the city, including Section 9, where the river widens to roughly 100 yards between rock outcroppings and drops through class IV rapids. Guided smallmouth bass trips are described as one of the company’s specialties, and the same water also gives up musky, walleye and trout. Trips run from drift boats and rafts, and the outfit books multi-day trips with overnight accommodations as well as whitewater smallmouth floats that pair fishing with the rapids downstream. Anglers can fish fly tackle or conventional spinning gear. Guides hold ACA Level IV swiftwater rescue certification along with CPR and first aid training and carry insurance. The company reports access to more than 400 miles of water across four river systems and runs two private base camps with exclusive access.

AFFC also guides the Nolichucky, which its own river page calls debatably the most beautiful freestone river Western North Carolina and East Tennessee have to offer, with roughly 75 of its 115 miles protected under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The nine-mile Nolichucky Gorge is the deepest gorge in the southeast: 400-foot bluffs, class IV rapids, no roads and no way in or out except by boat, holding monster smallmouth bass and musky. The service states it is the only guide operation offering Nolichucky River Gorge fishing trips, multi-day trips and smallmouth bass whitewater trips, both with the option of overnight accommodations, and that it holds special federal forest permits along with ACA Level IV Swift Water Rescue and CPR and First Aid certification. Source: https://www.ashevilleflyfishingco.com/nolichucky-river