Finally

It's not that I haven't been fishing lately, it's that I haven't been able to catch anything really post-worthy. I have been fishing the Provo once or twice a week for a couple of hours, and I have been catching fish, but they just weren't 'get your camera out to stop fishing' material. Today I got off work a little early and headed up to a higher stretch of the Lower Provo to give it a try. I quickly got into a decent bow on a secret fly, my first bow on the Provo and what was my biggest Provo River fish until that moment. He had a nasty battle wound on his side, pretty cool. Today was looking to be good fun.
I didn't have any luck for the next half hour or so with the rig I had set up, so I thought I would try some terrestrials. I didn't see a single fish rise the whole time I was there, but I figured the hard work would pay off if a fatty slammed a hopper or ant up top. No love. I gave up on that hope and started throwing a bugger. First cast with my black bugger and I hooked into a purdy brown.

I unhooked the brown and walked back up to where I was standing when I caught him. I casted about 6 feet further upstream from where I landed him and felt a very solid strike and set the hook. A nice fat bow jumped out of the water and I instantly got excited. The bow put up a really good fight, and after jumping around some logs to not let him escape, I landed him. Attached to this fish was a little surprise, a green caddis larvae stuck in the bow's side, evidence of a previous battle the bow had won against another fly fisherman. I took the fly out of his side and sent him on his way.



I casted my line back upstream a little bit as soon as I stood up from landing that fish, and started lowering my drag. The last fish actually was taking some line upstream so I decided to turn it up a bit. As I'm adjusting my gear I glance over at my indicator and all of the sudden it tanked... so I set the hook. I was amazed that another fish was on the end of my line, I didn't even really cast out in hopes of catching a fish or anything, it was just to get my line out from under my feet so I could re-adjust.

Sweet Revenge

My first experiences (last December) with fly-fishing were not very pleasant. I started fishing in the middle of freezing winter on the Provo. I went about a dozen times and caught two little fingerlings. It was terribly cold, slow, and I was by myself all but a couple times, trying to teach myself how to fish. It was rough. My wife and I moved south to be with her family because of our new baby, and I continued to learn how to fish on small, overgrown So. Utah streams. I started seeing a lot of success and grew to love it more and more each time I went. I vowed that whenever I made it back up here to Provo, I would fish the same place I went the most and kill it. Last week I had my chance to make good on this vow.

I arrived on the river at about 3:30. I started out with a nymph rig, secret fly with a sow bug dropper. Within 5 casts I was into a fish, gobbled down the sow bug, I was excited to get the skunk off so quickly at this stretch of stream that made me want shoot myself many times. I picked up a few more on my nymph rig, swapping the sow bug for a PT after two stomach pumps showed fish FULL of mayfly (PMD) nymphs. My buddy Nate tipped me off about some fish that may be holding on a bank because of the higher flows, so I threw on a parahopper and had some good success with it. The PMD's started coming off around 5 and I saw some rising fish so I threw on a small BWO (only mayfly I had in my box, how did that happen?) and started doing really well on it. All in all, I caught a fish about every 15 minutes, nothing of good size really, though. I caught fish on 8 different flies, pretty much everything I threw on produced a fish. I am happy to report that I made good on my vow and got my long desired revenge on the Provo. I must say, however, I was really disappointed with the size of the fish. All the fish I caught seemed to be stunted. The fish pictured below was the biggest one I caught. Is it just me or is this fish's head and tail way too big for its short body? Maybe next time I go I will help out the population and keep some fish?