I went out Friday morning, I started fishing just above the pumping station, caught quite a few fish but only two were keepers (14.5"-15") walked up to the dam and that's where I ran into an AP employee. I talked with the Alabama power guys that were out looking for dead fish (likely due to the report of broken down stocking truck that arrived very late) We saw probably 15-20 dead fish, but most seemed to be alive and well and I can 100% confirm it was a load of the large "brood stock" fish that were dumped. I caught two Large fish 17", 2+ pounder's and was holding out for one more that was even bigger but could get any of the huge ones to bite. I have to assume that the long trip on the stocking truck less than 24 hours before had them stressed, and not exploring the entire river. I was watching multiple LARGE (75 or more) pods of fish swimming up and downstream, and lots of single larger fish just cruising around. I would say by what I saw swimming around 75 percent of them were 14"+ and half of them were 16"+ with a few that were obviously much larger, its hard to estimate but maybe over 20"?

Just wanted to let everyone know, there's definitely some big ones back now and if they follow the same pattern as the last few years, the remaining stockings through September will be the larger fish.