April has been a unique and strange month due to the virus that has altered nearly every aspect of life, perhaps permanently in some ways (what will be the future of shaking hands?). April is a month I always anticipate due to the coming of nice weather, my son’s birthday, and the great dry fly fishing that comes with the long-awaited spring blue wing olive hatch. We’ve done our best to enjoy things while being isolated at home, dealing with difficult work circumstances, feeling like a terrible parent due to making a trip to the urgent care during a pandemic for some stitches (the one place above all others that we did not want to go), and the general anxiety associated with life during a pandemic (am I the only one having weird dreams and nightmares every night now?). Luckily, through all of this, the river has been there to help keep things in perspective as usual. The great thing about fly fishing is that the fish and the bugs don’t care about the virus, and social distancing is already built into the culture.
I did most of my fishing in Provo Canyon due to other sections of the river being closed down because of the virus and because it’s usually my last chance to fish the canyon before the summer tube hatch begins. Throughout the month, the afternoon has brought some good blue wing dry fly fishing, and the evening has brought some good midge dry fly fishing. Overcast days have especially been awesome. The water has now started to rise from runoff, but the nymphing has still been great. In case you are unfamiliar with the mythical blue wing olive. Behold.
There are typically a few things that make certain fish more memorable for me. The first would be when you are able to catch a particular fish in a very difficult circumstance. Perhaps it was in a difficult to reach spot under a branch or sitting in a trench at the bottom of the riverbed so you can’t easily get your fly in front of it. The second would be when you catch a very large fish. There are fewer of them and they are wilier and more difficult to catch. The third would be when a fish fights particularly hard, which is often associated with the previous scenario of catching a freakishly large fish. Another memorable scenario is when you catch a rare fish, such as a bull trout in Montana, which are not found many places in the world, or when I caught my first steelhead. My most memorable fish in April would have to be this ginormous rainbow, which checked off multiple boxes. It was just over 20 inches, one of only a handful that big that I’ve ever landed on the Provo. It was a beautiful wild rainbow, which account for a much smaller percentage of fish in the Provo River system, and last, but not least, it fought extremely hard and went aerial multiple times. This fish made my reel seem pretty small.
Many daily aspects of life have become quite surreal, but on the river I was able to forget about that stuff for awhile and enjoy the weather and the scenery. I also love seeing the wildlife going about their simpler existence. Here is a wild turkey getting a drink and a muskrat going about his daily business.
Being in the great outdoors always reminds me of a larger purpose to life than our daily comings and goings, and that our problems, while difficult, are but a short moment when compared to forever. We control our outlook on life and that can’t be taken from us except by our own choice. As a younger fisherman, I would forget, or lack patience, to actually look for fish before splashing into the water to begin casting, likely scaring many good fish right in front of me. Can you see the fish through the water below?
It takes practice and patience (and a decent pair of polarized glasses) to be able to see fish through the water without scaring them, but nowadays I enjoy trying to spot fish almost as much as trying to catch one. I pray and hope that we can all have the patience to look for, and the ability to see, the good things going on all around us.
The highlight was that I got it out of my finger and kept fishing.
Every year I look forward to the end of February and the revered buffalo midge hatch that it brings. Although I’ve run into some decent late afternoon surface action over the last month, I don’t think the buffalo midge craziness had quite hit full swing. Unfortunately, I had to run some errands this morning and didn’t arrive until about 12:30, and I was only able to catch the tail end of a midge hatch which arrived much earlier than the last couple of times I’ve been out. Hopefully I’ll get another shot at hitting the buffalo midge hatch on my next time out. In any case, I enjoyed some decent solitude, warm weather, and some nice fish. My favorite was this large football rainbow, as they are affectionately called out here. I had to fight pretty hard to land this one.
Although it was extremely windy when I first arrived, it eventually settled down and I was able to enjoy the type of day that makes you just want to sit down and enjoy the warm breeze and scenery for a while, which I did while eating a pb & j. There is nothing quite like a warm and overcast afternoon before a big storm. You can feel it in the air, and somehow it makes the current warm weather that much more enjoyable. Life is full of storms, but it also makes the good times better, so don’t forget to stop and enjoy the warm before the storm.
Now, as a busy holiday season nears its conclusion, I feel fortunate to have had a chance to spend time on the river on the eve of my favorite holiday. It’s true that overall, autumn is my favorite time of year, but as an individual holiday, Christmas is the champ. The gift giving, the lights, finding the perfect tree, being able to play Christmas music for an entire month (especially the Beach Boys), and so on. Really though, what I love most is the spirit that it brings. If you’re not careful though, the spirit of Christmas can get lost in the craziness of the crowds, the traffic jams, the flu season, financial challenges, and work deadlines. Luckily, spending some time in nature can help to keep things in perspective.
My favorite thing about cold weather fly fishing is the solitude that is unique to the wilderness during wintertime. Besides fewer people being around, nature just seems quieter and the sound of the water stands out. Many important decisions in my life have been made during the peace and quiet of a day on the river during winter. Compared to the last time I was out, there is now many a redd visible throughout the river system and it was important to be careful where I stepped. I had a blast fishing midges to some nice sized browns on the surface for a couple of hours before switching over to wet flies for the second half of the afternoon.
I had many things on my mind and kept fishing until it was dark, and my feet were frozen. This is partly because more things on my mind means it takes more time to clear my mind. It began to snow as I started back to the car and a herd of deer watched silently as I walked. I felt bad for the way their world was changing around them, but was also impressed by their resiliency and ability to adapt to those changes.
In recent years I’ve tried to learn to focus on what I can control, rather than worry about what I cannot, and new year’s resolutions are a nice opportunity to practice this mantra. I see it as a chance to adapt and commit (or recommit) to some changes that will improve my life and the lives of those around me. Not generic goals of “working out more” and “eating better,” but simple, meaningful behaviors that can be practiced each and every day until they become good habits. Whatever the process may look like for you, I hope you’ll take the chance to do the same, and that 2020 brings great things. See you next year.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Salt Lake City on the Fly 