The White Fish King on the Middle Provo River

Ron and I stopped by the Four Seasons fly shop again; this time to find out what they would recommend for streamers on the middle Provo.  A Home Invader was recommended so I picked up a few, including a larger one to use on my next trip to the Green River.  We then headed back to the deep pool where the dogs had joined us the previous week.  I fished the entire pool with the black wooly bugger that caught the two trout the week before.  Then I replaced the fly with the Home Invader and fished through the pool again –nothing, even without the dogs.  It is such a fishy looking pool too; riffles entering the pool with a drop off into deep water; slower, deeper water in the middle, and then shallower, faster water at the end of the pool.  This type of water should be perfect.  I didn’t even have one follow the streamer.  I had as good of luck with the dogs splashing.  

I continued using the Home Invader for the next hour, but after Ron had caught his third trout on nymphs I gave in.  

I tied on a San Juan worm and scud that worked so well two weeks earlier.   

Right away I caught my first fish…a white fish.  This reminded me it was still winter and typically fishing nymphs on the bottom yields quite a few white fish.  At least I know I’m getting deep enough, right?  Around the next bend was another pool with riffles with a drop-off leading into it.  There’s got to be a nice trout waiting in the deep water for a nymph to be swept off the rocks in the riffles.  The third drift over the riffles and into the pool provided a healthy strike.  I was excited by the weight I felt on the end of the line.  After a short fight however, I discovered it was another white fish, a twenty-inch white fish.

I went back to the pool and tried again.  Within a cast or two, I had another strike.  I felt the head shaking and knew it was yet another white fish.  

It was the same size as the previous one.  This was still a lot of fun.  By now I was hot and sweaty but the sun was about ready to set behind the beautiful snow-covered mountains. If I didn’t have a three mile hike back to the car, these white fish would have ended up in the smoker.