Asheville Anglers Guide Service

The French Broad runs 213 miles out of western North Carolina, winding through downtown Asheville and on into east Tennessee to meet the Holston, and from March through November there is a good chance of finding one of these guides floating it after smallmouth bass and musky. Early spring is jig head and soft plastic crayfish work; once the water warms the service plans on big smallmouth taken on topwater baits. Forty-plus smallmouth in a day is described as not unlikely, with several shots at trophy fish over three pounds in the same outing. The musky fishing carries the reputation here: the river is said to produce forty-inch-plus fish consistently, with some measuring over fifty inches. This is boat water by necessity rather than preference, and the service is blunt about it, saying the river is only accessible by drift boat or jet boat and is much too large and vast to cover on foot.