Fly Fishing The Lower Middle Provo River

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.