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.