I’ve recently started going to the Trout Unlimited/Stonefly
Society monthly meetings. One of the
latest meetings was on the topic of the Middle Provo River, taught by Mark and Brandon
of the Four Seasons Fly Fishers in Heber.
They discussed, of course, the fly fishing, insect hatches, access
points and seasons. You may recall that
I have written about the Middle Provo before.
This is probably the most popular stretch of river in all of Utah.
The thing that caught my attention at this
presentation was that most people fish the upper half of the Middle
Provo River. This is where the flows and
insect hatches are most consistent. The
lower half of the river however, sees fewer
fishermen. It still has good fishing,
just not the consistent dry fly fishing you see upstream. Since I’m more of a nymph and streamer kind
of guy anyway, I thought I’d give this lower section a try. Ron and I stopped in at Four Seasons on the way to the river to see
what they would recommend for this lower section. Mark picked out some small midge and mayfly
nymphs as well as scuds and small brown San Juan Worms. We also picked up a map that indicated
parking, trails and the names of the various fishing holes.
There were a few cars in the parking lot, but
we only encountered one other fisherman on the stream. I started out with the brown San Juan worm and the
scud as a dropper.
The first part of the
river that we fished had a small island. As I
started to fish around it, I caught a nice 12 inch brown trout after 3 or 4
casts.
This was a good start. While fishing around the island, I caught
another brown and a rainbow.
Continuing
downstream for the next hour, Ron and I kept trying the various nymphs that
Four Seasons recommended and we caught five more browns.
On the walk back to the car, I was tempted to
tie on a streamer and fish through the deep holes. With the sun slipping behind the mountains
and knowing we had a long walk ahead, I decided I would save this for the next
trip.
