Fishing the French Broad River: Part Two

The French Broad is probably the most productive river in the country for catching fish year-round. But late-summer fishing is epic. With a little guidance, a novice fisherman can easily land thirty or more fish in a day. My son and I would often lose count, but we had times (often just half-days) in July and August that we landed over a hundred fish. Everything in the river will attack a garden fly, but if we just wanted to target the smallies, we would go artificial. On spinning rods, a small, pumpkin seed lizard, Carolina-rigged is very effective. Also, they will slam rubber hellgrammites bumped along the bottom. On a fly rod, they hammer streamers and muddler minnows.

Sometime after Melissa returned from her vacation, we had the opportunity to talk fishing over lunch in the break-room. She told me she enjoyed fishing very much, but didn’t know where to fish in the area, having moved recently to the area. Our store was only a mile, as the crow flies, from the French Broad. I offered to introduce her to the river and she obliged.

My wife Melissa with a French Broad smallmouth

A channel catfish from the same spot

It was a bright, warm, day. After meeting at the store, we rode together to the river. It was warm enough to forego waders and just wear shorts and wading shoes. Melissa decided to get some sun, so her fishing attire was minimal. I tried to stay focused on the task at hand. She and waded out to the middle of the river and began to fish. We landed a couple of small bass before we heard the first rumble of thunder. Thunder? The sky was blue. As we looked up, dark clouds boiled over the mountain from the South and we saw the first bolt of lighting over the ridgeline. We scrambled for the bank, I helped her up first, again trying to focus, unsuccessfully, on just the task at hand: don’t get fried by lighting! Hailstones, at least golf-ball sized, began pelting the river as we clambered for cabin porch. The temperature dropped drastically and we were stuck shivering but sheltered, watching this amazing, unprecedented (at least in my experience) display of terrible beauty. The bright sky had rapidly transitioned to dark gray, lightning bolds exploded around us, hail pummeled water in great splashes and reverberated the tin roof of the porch vociferously. I put my arms around her naturally as we witnessed, wide-eyed, the awesome spectacle. Then, as quickly as it came, it blew past. The sun came out. The temperature rose. And the most stunning rainbow we had ever seen, materialized above the river.

The backstory is that Melissa and I had both experienced tragedy in our lives. Both of us had been married and had spouses leave. I had lost a fourteen year-old daughter the year before. Our lives were broken. We were both followers of Christ and trying to keep the faith. Though devastated, we kept putting the pieces of our broken lives before the Lord in prayer. We asked him, by His grace, to bring hope into our lives once again. If you know the story of Noah, from the Bible, the rainbow represents hope. It represents the promise of God to protect and provide. For Melissa and me, that day on the river was a message. We had both experienced a terrible and unforeseen storm. These circumstances had brought us together. God was speaking our story through a natural spectacle (Romans 1:19). We didn’t discuss the meaning of this experience right away. In fact, it would be many months before we went on an actual date, but it was the beginning of a friendship. There was nothing romantic in these initial months, but we started spending our days together. We fished, hiked, hunted, shared meals, and worked together. Nearly every waking moment was spent with this woman, who soon became my best friend. After nearly a year of just hanging out together, it became something more. We had never kissed or even held hands, but I knew we were supposed to be man and wife. Melissa and I have been married now for several years. We still spend as much time together as possible hiking, hunting, camping, and fishing. I am a blessed man. She makes me feel like I’ve won the lottery every day, except I know that my life with this woman, who shares my every passion is the pinnacle of providence.