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.