Salt Lake City on the Fly

The water levels have subsided to what I consider to be optimal for fishing the Mighty Provo; slightly off color and still strong after run off, but manageable enough to wade.I have to say that this time of the year is only a slight second behind fall for being my favorite time to be on the river (a few points lost due to the summer tube hatch). The fish are at their most powerful and hard fighting after having endured run off, and there are more overlapping insect hatches than at perhaps any other time of the year, including the mythical green drake and golden stonefly. If you see one of these guys swimming around in the water then consider yourself lucky.This year’s epic snow levels have created some of the hardest fighting fish in recent memory, and I had a blast trying to land them. I can honestly say that I hooked into a couple of beasts that were comparable to fighting a large bull trout in Montana. If you’ve ever had the privilege of accidentally hooking into a bull (it is illegal to purposely catch them in many places), then you understand what I mean. Every fish was fighting twice its size. Even this little guy fought hard!Over the course of 7 or 8 hours on the Middle Provo, I was able to land fish on the surface using green drakes, golden stones, PMDs, and midges, along with consistent sub surface action throughout. There is nothing quite like watching a small shark rise in the middle of fast moving and choppy water to destroy a size 10 green drake or stonefly. This is typically followed by a challenging fight. My favorite such instance on this day was this large brown that took a green drake in the middle of a rapid. It reminded me of shark week when the great whites jump out of the water to get a seal, but at one thousandth the scale.I’m not one to exaggerate my fishing stories, and I always measure before making any claims or placing a fish in my record book, but I can honestly say I believe I lost my biggest Provo River fish ever this time. It was a rainbow that fought me for a while before making one last run into the rapids as I was trying to get it in the net (it didn’t fit in my 19” net). It’s been a long time since I lost a fish that way, or one that large, and I was quite upset in the moment. About 15 minutes later I caught the fish pictured above on a green drake dry fly and my disappointment was quickly forgotten. Later, as I reflected on the experience, I thought about the role that disappointment plays in forging us as a person. It’s actually disappointment that makes us better and drives us to improve. I don’t think we learn much on the days where everything goes exactly according to plan, but rather, it’s the times when we have to pick ourselves back up and try harder that we truly progress. In my experience, it’s usually only after we’ve had to pick ourselves back up a few times that anything amazing ever happens. In a strange way, it’s what keeps us coming back for more I guess.

Well I’ve slacked off a bit and not posted for over a month, but I have been fishing and it has been awesome. Spring run-off has been in full force for 2 or 3 weeks now and is later and stranger than most years, due to the huge amount of snow and cooler temperatures we have enjoyed this year. A couple of weeks ago I felt like I had Provo canyon to myself, which I am assuming was due to the cooler temps and some rain (gets rid of the tubers) and the spring run-off (gets rid of the anglers). The day didn’t start out as planned when I fell in the river and got water in my waders almost immediately after arrival, but I proved once again that it’s impossible to stay in a bad mood when you’re catching fish. Don’t let anyone ever tell you the river is unfishable during run-off; you just need to look for fish in different places. In this case, I kept plucking them out right up against the bank in the most unlikely spots. The best thing is that you have access to some beasts that normally would be hanging out at the bottom of a deep hole out of reach. Here is an example of one such beast. I’m pretty sure he could have eaten my reel.More recently, I hit the bunny farm section of the Middle Provo near Heber. Unlike a couple of weeks ago, it was sunny and crowded, but it was such a beautiful day that I didn’t even notice the crowds.As on most crowded days, I covered quite a bit of ground in my quest to hike past everyone and was rewarded with some nice fish and even a rare Provo River encounter with my old archnemesis the moose. Believe it or not, in all my years of fishing everywhere on the Mighty Provo, I’ve never run into a moose and always wondered why, since there is an abundance of seemingly perfect moose terrain. I concluded that it must be the crowds, cars, etc. that keep them away. Apparently, however, they are around, and for once in my life I actually spotted a moose from a safe distance and managed to avoid a traumatic near-death experience like most of my previous encounters in Montana. In case you are wondering though, if a moose stops what it is doing (usually eating) and stares at you intently, that means it is time to stop and go back from whence you came, as I did in the example below. Can you spot a bull moose looking at me in this picture? This particular scene would be much scarier in October of course.It was another great day on the river, and I was able to reflect on the more important things in life while I was out there, which is actually more important than catching fish. From a purely objective standpoint, there may be some superior fly-fishing rivers out there, but for me the Provo River is like an old friend. No matter how long I’ve been away, it always feels like home when I get there, and for that I’m grateful.

It really felt like summer out on the river this last weekend, hot and sunny, although it’s not really summer on the Provo without any PMDs or caddis on the surface yet, in my mind. The water flows are quite high on both the middle and the canyon, but the water clarity is still good. I mention water clarity because I’m always surprised at the extent to which people don’t try looking for fish before blindly casting and hoping for the best. Can you see the fish below?

I didn’t run into any surface action on either section, but the nymphing was good. Although I caught more fish on the middle, the best fish was caught in the canyon. Awesome color, size, and fought like a maniac.

When you venture into the great outdoors, especially near rivers, you often see, or have a run in with, some interesting wildlife. After all, we are entering their stomping grounds. Examples would be a bighorn sheep trotting up to your car before noticing you and freaking out, a mother moose threatening to trample you which causes you to scale a cliff in your waders to escape, a black bear hopping a fence, an eagle grabbing a fish, almost stepping on a rattlesnake, getting stalked by a huge mountain lion in the dark, the list goes on. In some cases, you wish the memory wasn’t happening in the moment (i.e. angry moose, mountain lion, etc.), but in most cases it’s awesome. This day’s interesting wildlife moment of the day was a mighty gopher snake defying physics and making a meal of a large rodent (picture not for the faint of heart). Mother nature is a mad scientist indeed. I figure by the time I’m retired, I’ll have had enough run ins to write some sort of book hopefully.

The older I get, the less important it is to catch fish, and the more important it is to just get out there and be reminded that there is more to life than running errands and being busy, both of which I am guilty of doing excessively. Somehow, seeing the crazy antics of the wildlife seems to remind me how petty it is to be concerned about which glass bottles I should order for keeping cold water in the fridge. Seriously, I’ve been researching and reading reviews for like a month…because I’m sure there is a huge difference between them all…anyways, life is short so don’t forget to have a few adventures. Even the ones that don’t seem so great in the moment, sometimes make for awesome memories later.

 

Don’t be fooled by the sunny looking photo you see above, as this past weekend was a cold and windy endeavor. Windy enough, in fact, to be considered almost unfishable…almost. I decided to hit the Middle Provo below the damn and arrived to an impressive crowd of anglers, but within an hour the bitter cold wind had driven everyone away and I felt like I was the only person left. I don’t generally let weather conditions affect my enthusiasm for fly fishing, but I’ll admit that the wind tested my will this day. At one point, I got tangled so bad that I had to clip off my entire rig and start over, trying my best not to let the swear words fly while doing it. In the end, I was rewarded with a sudden lack of wind and a midge hatch for the final waning hour of the day. Definitely worth the wait.

The water flows are up quite a bit, but the water clarity is still good and run off hasn’t really begun in full force yet. I was able to catch a few fish in the afternoon while nymphing with a sow bug, but as mentioned above, it didn’t really heat up until the last hour of daylight. I feel sorry for all those sorry suckers who left before the sun started to fade.

One of my favorite things to witness on the river is when a huge bird of prey dives into the water to catch a fish. I snapped a picture of the osprey pictured above, just moments before such an event. Ironically, this seems to mostly happen on days when I can’t buy a fish and have decided there must be no fish left. Such was the case today when this particular osprey dove into the water a few feet away and emerged with a nice catch while I was struggling to make a cast in the wind. More proof that even on days when we can’t catch them, the fish are still all around us on the Provo, you just need to be an osprey to see them. For me, it’s a reminder that our perspective has a lot to do with our vantage point. Once again, the mighty osprey has taught a valuable lesson about life.

Thanks to a day off of work for Good Friday, I managed to make it out to the Mighty Provo two weeks in a row, last Saturday and yesterday. Although conditions varied considerably between the two days, both turned out to be awesome. On Saturday the canyon was windy with temps in the high 40s, so I had a few layers and a beanie on for much of the day.I was able to hook a few nice fish in the early afternoon while they were rising to some darker colored blue wing olives. The blue wing action was a little sporadic, with midge hatches overlapping through much of it.It wasn’t until a little later as the sun was getting lower that things got really crazy. Large fish started rising frequently to midges and the hatch got so thick that it was like a blanket covering the surface of the water.I was doing ok on a couple of my favorite midge patterns before switching over to a very basic looking Griffith’s Gnat after I noticed clusters of midges all over. That was when I started hooking fish after fish until dark, with most being in the 14-16” range. A basic Griffiths Gnat ended up being my MVF (most valuable fly), can’t remember the last time I was able to say that. This guy stood out because he had obviously been in quite a few battles and was still going strong.On Friday, temps were in the 70s in the canyon and there was little to no surface action, so I enjoyed a few hours of nymphing in T-shirt weather. I didn’t catch as many fish, but managed to net a few beasts, my favorite of which was the 18” rainbow pictured at the top of the post. The weather was so nice, in fact, that I enjoyed sitting on the bank eating my pb & j almost as much as the actual fishing. It was a reminder that when it comes to fly fishing, the actual catching of fish isn’t necessarily the most important part of the experience. For me, the sounds of the trees and the wildlife, and especially the water, all have a sort of calming effect on the much noisier parts of life that take place during the week. Hopefully you have an equivalent activity in your own life to help keep things in perspective and keep the craziness of everyday life from getting too out of hand. If not, I recommend fly fishing.

 

You may be wondering why I have a picture of Real Salt Lake for this post? Well, aside from the fact that I love RSL and soccer in general, it’s a reminder of what an awesome location we live in. Not many places, in my experience, have comparable fly fishing or such lively and relevant professional sports teams nearby, let alone both. Montana had the best fly fishing, but not much beyond the great outdoors. Chicago had some of the world’s most awesome professional sports (although I refuse to ever root for the Bulls), but not much in the way of the great outdoors or fly fishing. Whereas, in Salt Lake City, I was able to go to a Jazz game, fish a blue-ribbon river, and then attend an RSL game, all within an hour of each other and in the same weekend. Only a handful of cities in the nation can claim anything similar. Pretty sweet.

Saturday was a slightly windy, but beautiful day, and I decided to hit Provo Canyon above the Sundance turnoff. All week I’ve had visions of catching big fish rising to blue wing olives, so my expectations were high when I arrived around 12:30 PM. Within 30 minutes the blue wings began to hatch in full force and the fish started rising with reckless abandon. In spite of this, it took a little while to get things dialed in (which is annoying when fish are splashing all around you), but I eventually found a fly that seemed to do the trick and was able to get into some nice fish, although I had to switch gears a few times in order to keep up as the fish keyed in on different things. Even when the hatch is thick, it can sometimes be challenging to make your fly stick out or to keep up with the constant, but subtle changes as the fish change their focus throughout the life of the hatch, so don’t be afraid to switch it up if things suddenly stop working. This beauty was around 17 inches and was taken on a small baetis emerger.

Spring fly fishing in Utah is a beautiful time to be on the river. The trees and plants around you are beginning to turn green, while the mountains are still covered in snow in the background. The water is low and clear, but the fish have begun to move around a little and fight hard on every take, and it is arguably the best time of the year for pure sight fishing. I spotted more large fish hanging out inches from the bank than I can remember, so have a look before you go stomping through the water to your favorite spot, or you just might miss the chance to catch your best fish of the day. Sometimes the best things are right in front of us, and yet we are too busy stomping right through them in order to get to something else that may or may not even be there, so don’t forget to slow down and enjoy what you have. See you in two weeks.

Two weeks ago, I fished Provo Canyon in the midst of a blizzard, but that seemed like a distant memory yesterday as I enjoyed a healthy dose of sunshine, blue skies, and temps in the upper 40s all afternoon. Although water levels are still very low, the fish appeared to me to be moving around a little more already. I observed, or scared, quite a few fish in shallow areas as compared to even a couple of weeks ago.

There was little to no surface action when I arrived at the river around 1:30, with the exception of a few certain areas that seem to always have fish rising. This was a stark contrast to the month of February, but it won’t be long before spring blue wing olives arrive to heat things up. I covered quite a bit of ground while fishing sub surface on a sow bug until around 5:30, when I contemplated heading back to the car so I could go get a J Dawg, which I had been looking forward to all day. Who drives all the way to Provo without going to J Dawgs while you’re there? It was at this moment of deep thought, that fish suddenly started rising to some very large midges, so I hurried and switched over and was able to hook a couple of nice sized browns before it suddenly stopped just as quickly as it had begun. Literally it lasted about 3 or 4 minutes. The fish below was sipping on some of these Godzilla midges when I hooked him.

Adaptability is important on the mighty Provo. I learned many years ago to take what the river gives me, as opposed to trying to impose my own will against mother nature. It actually cracks me up to think back to the days of stringing up a fly at the car before even getting to the water to see what is happening, and then being frustrated when the fly that worked so great a week ago wasn’t working all of a sudden. These days I pretty much approach life the same way I approach the river. Prepare as best you can, be adaptable and ready to learn, and be grateful to be there at all. Also, I did end up getting a J Dawg, and it was delicious as always. Since this isn’t Facebook, I will spare you a photo of the actual J Dawg itself.

March in Utah is a fascinating month for fly fishing, and for the outdoors in general. Spring starts to creep in while winter tries its best to hold on for a little longer, and the weather can go from 50 degrees to white out conditions from one day to the next. After a week of warmer temps and melted snow, I thought I might be in for a day of milder weather in Provo Canyon, but it turned out to be 100% winter on Saturday, complete with frozen fingers and a blizzard.

As always, the fish didn’t seem to mind, and as always, I didn’t mind that my fingers were frozen because the dry fly action continued to be hot. I arrived around 1 PM to slow surface action with coldish temps and rain, but as the snow started to fly, the fish started to rise, and I switched over to an adult midge and never looked back. The fish below was my favorite of the day because he fought like a maniac and because I had to make a pretty difficult cast in the wind to get him.

The action continued until the sun went down and I finally started back to the car looking like a walking snow man. It felt good to be walking back to my car on the train tracks at dark again. As per the usual, the mighty civic was the only car left.

This stretch was one of the first on the Provo River that I ever explored as a new fly fisherman, and I haven’t fished it in a long time. It was fascinating to see how much the river had changed over the years, but even more fascinating, and somehow comforting, that I could somehow still recognize all the spots I had fished. In many cases I could even remember specific fish I had seen or caught many years ago. I feel like most of the important people and places in our life are the same way. They change over the years and we sometimes go a long time without seeing them, but home will always be home when we get there, and the people who truly care about us will still be there for us when we finally see them again.

Last weekend, having President’s Day off from work, I was able to hit both the middle Provo and the lower canyon. Both days were the kind that make you feel like kind of a badass just for going at all because it’s so cold and windy.

I stalled for like 20 minutes after arriving because I didn’t want to get out of the warm car, since I was also a bit under the weather, but the older you get, you realize that you can’t waste the chance when you have it. With temps in the 20s, I was constantly breaking ice out of my eyelets and stopping often to get the feeling back in my fingers, but as oft happens on the mighty Provo during winter, I was rewarded with hours of dry fly fishing on midges, and you only notice the cold when you’re not catching fish right. As exciting as it is to catch big fish on huge stoneflies, caddis, etc. during the warmer months, there is something special about catching large fish on 7X and a fly so small you can barely see it, and a take so subtle that you wonder if you really even saw anything. On Saturday I hit the Charleston area and was able to fish dries most of the afternoon to smallish, but feisty rainbows like this guy:

As much as I like to chase the bigger fish, I had a lot of fun fishing for these little guys for a couple of hours. On Monday, the lower canyon was a different story. I love all sections of the Provo River, but the canyon will always be my favorite, and it’s been awhile since I’ve made it there now that I’m in Salt Lake. Temps were in the low 20s and it was very windy, but luckily the fish don’t care about any of that, and I was able to catch fish on small midge emergers for the entire afternoon, except that these ones were not that small. I kept thinking I was due to hook a small fish, and they just kept being anywhere from 14-17.” Here is one of my favorites:

Some of my best fishing memories have happened in the midst of harsh or difficult circumstances, in this case cold weather and sickness. An old friend and fly fishing mentor used to always tell me that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear. I took this to heart and started refining my winter gear and have enjoyed winter fly fishing ever since, in a way even embracing the weather conditions. This mirrors my life in general, as many of my most cherished memories have taken place during the most difficult times in my life. Maybe the non-fishing equivalent of that saying would be something like, there’s no such thing as a bad life, just a bad perspective.

 

I have a special place in my heart for winter fly fishing. Some of the most important, and sometimes difficult, decisions in my life have been made during the silence of a cold, wintery day on the river. It offers a unique type of solitude and beauty, with the worst weather conditions offering the greatest of both, for those willing to brave it. This last week, however, required no bravery, with temps in the high 30s, plenty of sun, and a solid 3 hours of fish rising to midges on the surface. The Middle Provo was packed, but for those willing to hike a little, and fish where no one else is, there is always plenty of open water.

After nymphing for a bit, I was able to fish dries to willing fish for the rest of the afternoon. Very small emergers did the trick. This solid 17″ brown was my favorite fish of the day.

It was the type of day that makes me feel fortunate to even have access to such a beautiful drive, let alone the river itself. Nearly a year has passed since moving back to Utah, and as much as I miss Montana, I can honestly say that it’s nice to be home.