Nantahala River

Mm-hmm.

The Tuckasegee delayed harvest and the Upper Nantahala delayed, delayed harvest.

So we've got the Tuckasegee here in Jackson County and then of course over in Bryson City in Swain County.

Um, but our, our location, with having the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in our backyard, um...

And so, um, you know, a lot of people get so zoned in on delayed harvest that they forget what else we have.

Mm-hmm.

The Nantahala National Forest, um, all the, the blue lines in there.

Of course, the Nantahala River is a s- a truly amazing river.

It just kind of was our vacations to go paddling.

We did other vacations, of course, and stuff, but the most memorable ones was always going down to the NOC and staying at Lost Mine Campground and going down the Nantahala in a ducky or whatever we could find.

I got a dancer for my 13th or 14th birthday and taking it down the Nantahala and just swimming a couple times because I had no idea how to roll, had no idea how to catch a net.

He's But with my dad being a flat water sprinter, I always had a pretty good forward stroke.

And then through his racing connections, he knew a lot of the folks at NOC at that time.

I was like, oh, I've got it.

And my dad was coming down the next day and I took him down the river and I was like, I'm going to have my first combat roll in front of my dad.

and we were coming around the corner above the bump, like right above the, like, like that left-hand bend above the bump on the Nantahala.

What kind of distance will you cover over that 15 to 25 minutes in a down river race?

So I live on the Nantahala River.

So we have a, it's the Nantahala runs 350 days a year.

It's eight miles long.