04-18-2010, 09:00 AM
Christopher and I had planned this trip for a couple months, we&#39;ve done a couple canoe trips before but not on the medium sized scale that this one was. We did 20 miles of the French Broad from Hot Springs, NC to Bridgeport, TN, going through the Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests on the way, camping once in Cherokee. We started out on Friday around 2 pm after eating at the Smoky Mountain Diner in Hot Springs, which is on the Appalachian Trial and is a big rest stop for those hikers. We did our planned 5 miles on Friday, with me starting out the fishing with this fiesty smallmouth:<br /><br /><br /><br />I caught it on a black beetlespin that I&#39;ve had for a long time but had never used, I&#39;m not sure why I picked it out this time either, but I&#39;m glad I did cause we caught about 20 of our 25 fish on it. We only had the one though, so we did whatever we had to do to make sure we didn&#39;t lose it, such as retying 50 times, moving rocks underwater to unwedge the lure, climbing trees and cutting off branches to get it down, etc. and sure enough we didn&#39;t lose it! I also caught one on a shaky head, 2 on a heddon tiny torpedo, and 3 or 4 on my trusty crickhopper. The rest were on that glorious little beetlespin. Here&#39;s another that Christopher picked up this morning:<br /><br /><br /><br />We went through a bunch of rapids, most small, some just big enough to make us a little uneasy. Our worst one saw us coming out the other end of it with about 20 gallons of water in the canoe.<br /><br /><br /><br />But, we made it through everything safe and unhurt (and not sunburned) and it was just a very pretty place to spend a couple days as we saw quite a bit of wildlife, like this otter (if you can spot it)<br /><br /><br /><br />and this juvenile bald eagle that let us get pretty dang close before he flew away:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Great trip and to round it out here&#39;s a few other pictures of scenery and things from the trip.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I also uploaded two videos to YouTube, the first is a short video of us going down a small but fun rapid, and the second one is a panoramic shot of the French Broad and the surrounding bluffs and mountains.<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkp_46ZqGsc<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=164ES-0j0Ro<br /><br />Enjoy!<br /><br />