The French Broad River runs right next to the edge of the campus of Johnson Bible College where I go to school. I don't bring my bass boat to school so I just wade. The other side of the river is where the carp are so I wade across in a spot where it doesn't get much more than knee deep, most of the river doesn't get more than 5 or 6 feet in the middle. But I walked down the bank on the other side a quarter of a mile or so and found where the carp were as well as a few 5 foot long grass carp that would never quite give me a shot. Normally they never let water out of the Douglas dam upstream in the spring so I didn't bother to check the schedule. But for some reason they let the water out. There is no way around to get back across without going through the river. So I hurried back to the spot where I waded across but the water was pretty high by this point. I took my waders of so they wouldn't flood and carried my bow and fishing pole I brought. Where the water was about knee deep before it was chest high now. The current was pretty stong then when I got to the part near some rapids where I get out the water was to strong to walk upstream against. I had to lean back into it and take little steps backward pushing with everything I had like a tug of war to make progress being careful not to lose my footing and get swept away. I thought I might just have to try to swim across the current and try to make it to an island down river but I managed to make it to the shore. So now I make shure to call and check the dam schedule before heading across river!
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