Tiger Trout

After catching my sweetest trout to date, which ended up being a tiger trout on a mouse pattern, Derek was way excited for me. He has painted a lot in the past, but has recently gotten into painting fish. He offered to do a watercolor of the fish to help me remember it. It turned out awesome and it is now going to be a part of my fly tying desk/room for years to come. Thanks Derek!

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Provo River

Gotta love Provo river fly fishing. Not really. I went out yesterday solo to see if I could find one of the few big trout in the Provo, I failed. I started low on the lower section, chucking a few different things without much success. I waded up to a few holding fish and decided to switch it up a little bit so I put on a small black zebra midge I had tied up. First cast I hooked up with this little guy, skinny skinny but nice colors. Next cast I picked up a smaller fish, next cast after that (all into the same small hole) and I hooked into another fish. I think I found what the fish were wanting to eat...



As I was walking up to one of the last stretches of river I was going to fish, I saw a lot of flashes in the water. I stopped to see what was going on, and it was just one fish thrashing around without stopping. I walked up right behind it and saw that the fish had some line coming out of its mouth and the line was stuck under a small log right next to it. I grabbed the fish, grabbed the line, and busted it off. So the fish had a huge worm hook deep in its mouth (size 4 or so). The fish had flailed around so much trying to break free that the line had deeply cut into the side of its mouth. Pretty crazy, first time I've seen that. Dang chucko.

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Tigers, oh my!

Kyle came up for the weekend to do some fishing. After coming really close to bailing out on me for Saturday, he decided he was going to stick with being a man and go fish. We met up in Heber at 3:30 a.m., nice and early. We were on the water and fishing by 5. Man it was freezing. We were tossing mice, anxiously stripping them in waiting for the loud splash to come from the dark. I was using Mike's mutant mouse. After an hour and a half with only one hookup and no other strikes, we started to get discouraged. As soon as the sun started to rise, something switched on the tigers aggression. Both Kyle and I were getting lots of action, almost every cast would produce a huge wave behind our bugs and we would strip in line just waiting for the vicious take from below. After different stripping techniques, I finally got a solid hookup with a nice fish. I landed him, we taped the fish at 23", snapped a photo and we were back at it for more.


Not long thereafter, I had an insanely aggressive strike and was able to set the hook. After landing the fish, we taped it at 24" without any tail pinching or anything, so it was DEFINITELY at least 25 3/4", Kyle. My biggest to date.



A few minutes later, Kyle hooked up with a nice tiger and landed it. He pulled out the tape to get a measurement and the fish weaseled his way out of Kyle's hands before we could get a pic. We continued to strip mice, excited as 8 year olds on Christmas Eve. The mice action slowed way down so we switched it up a little bit. We each picked up a few more fishing, with me ending with this nasty, hook-jawed tiger. Mice+tigers=fun.

Paparazzi Up in My Stuff

On my birthday this year (May 21) I hooked up with a friend of a friend to do some fishing in So. Utah. His name is Scott Donaghe, California surf fly-fishing pro/photog extraordinaire. I decided it would be a lot of fun to hit a very picturesque skinny water ending in a beautiful slot canyon. The trip was awesome: great fishing and great scenery.

This morning, Nate texted me saying "you're famous." It turns out, Scott got his first photo published. It happened to be the cover of Southwest Fly Fishing and it happened to be me! Pretty awesome! Congrats Scott, hope to see some more of your stuff in mags in the future! Thanks Mike for the screenshot.

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.