Posts tagged fly fish provo river
Epic Day
Mar 8th
Here is another great post from the Frenzy’s own Travis “Dr” Gillespie. Travis writes is own blog called Xstream Outdoors and allows us to share his posts, check it if you haven’t.
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to find myself on the Provo River with friends along with one of the best midge hatches I have ever seen. Travis explains it better so I will let him do it with in his own words. I have added a few extra pictures that I have spiced up a bit. Enjoy!!!
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So I’ve been doing some thinking about what makes an “EPIC DAY” on the water. Is it the beautiful scenery one witnesses, the time away from real life, the fish caught or is it simply the friendships we gain and share? I guess it really just comes down to who you talk to and how they see their life. To me an “Epic Day” is something personal that I keep deep inside my soul, it is the one thing that I can have that no one else can take away or share. Its very personal.
So on that note, today was what some might call an “Epic Day”. With the OK from the wife and a few texts later, I had a crew of four die hard fishermen and fisherwomen, excited to hit the Middle Provo in the morning. We arrived at our destination at 8:45 am to the surprise of complete solitude. (Weird for the Provo River on a Sat.) Isn’t it funny how a little cold weather forecast will scare off most anglers. As we approached the river we instantly saw little rings of joy that would make any anglers heart start beating a little faster. After tying on some little Midges (#20-22) with 7X tippet, Mallary struck first with two quick hook ups. After that was the highlight of the outing for me. I casted my flies up the shallow riffle and WHAM! on the first cast I was hooked into a fat leaping brown on 7X tippet. It tried everything possible to rub or throw the hook, but after the air show was finished the big fish came into the net. It measured a true 21 inches with a great healthy girth. I was stoked! I could have ended my day right then and been completely content.
For the next hour we had a little calm before the storm, the hatch hadn’t really started yet, but there were just enough little Midges flying around to keep the fish looking up. We each landed a couple on dries, then just like clock work the weather warmed a little and the main event begun!!! Within a matter of 30 mins there were hundreds of fish on the surface sipping the abundance of clustered midges that layered the waters surface. It was an amazing site and the dry fly fishing for the next 3 hours was just plain old silly. With a good presentation, the right size of fly (Griffin Gnat #22!!!) no hungry brown could stand a chance.
The key was in the presentation!!! Accurate, soft casting was crucial to get the tiny flies to a trouts feeding lane without spooking them.
With the late addition of Big Hoss to our team. Hoss, Wayne, Mallary and myself had a blast catching feisty 14-17 inch browns until our arms were sore and our confidence was through the roof. But just as we knew it, great days must come to an end and the hatch was over and the fish went back to their beds. All we could say was “that was an amazing hatch”. So what makes an “Epic Day”? Well it’s all in the eyes of the beholder…
Fishing Summary:
Fished: 9 am-4 pm
Midge Hatch 9 am-3 pm (best time 1-3)
Flies: Orange Asher #16, Grif Gnat #20, Zebra #22, WD-40 #22, Single Midge #24, Midge Emerger #24-26.
Tippet: 6X-7X
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Midge hatch on the Provo River anyone?
Feb 23rd
Here is another post from our Doctor of Fish Travis Gillespie. Check out his blog, Xstream Outdoors
What’s tiny, black and very hard to imitate? You guest it, a late season Midge Hatch on the Middle Provo. I had this last Saturday all to myself and The only thing I had planned was to plan to do something. As I drifted off to sleep Friday night I had two ideas, one was to wake up early and drive out to the Green River solo and the other was to venture to unfished sections of the upper Provo River that had been locked up to private landowners for yrs, but now are open to their natural state. As planned I woke up at 4am, still undecided on what road to take, I fought over the pros and cons until my mind was set. The unknown wins again!!! Plus the extra 3 hours of sleep was nice. At 7am I rolled out of bed and packed the Jeep. When I arrived to the river access. I was greeted with something one would see on an Alaskan cruise. The river was lined with ice and flowing slush and ice chunks were the norm. Right off the bat I found a nice deep run with some very promising water. I hooked up with two fatties and that was it. The ice and the freezing water was enough to prompt me to head down river in search for some warmer water and a late morning midge hatch on the tailwater below Jordanelle Dam. I got to my spot to see three trucks already there, dang I though, but when I pulled up everyone was just getting set up, so I pulled over and grabbed my rod and was the first to hit the river. As I approached the river I could see rings of midge eating trout.
My heart started pounding. I got set up with an outfit of #24 single midge with a orange asher. Within my first ten casts I managed to miss at least 3 fish and land 2 nice little browns.
That is about how the rest of the afternoon went for me. I would miss about ten fish for ever one that I landed. The biggest problem that I had was my over excited hook sets on 7X. I must had broken off at least 20 flies in fishes mouths. (Slurp, That was my fly!, hard hook set, feel the fishes weight, snap, SH!! SUCK!!!) Oh well, I was a little rusty on fishing dries. As the hatch started dying down around 3pm, I decided to switch locations again to see if I could catch some of the action on big browns that my little sis had a few weeks back. Our secret spot didn’t disappoint. I hooked and landed 5 nice browns and a few feisty little bows and one huge whittie within an hour.
In all it was a great day to be out fishing. The weather was perfect for a Feb day. Sunny and about 30-40 degrees average.
I left the house at 7am and returned back home at around 7pm…Next time I will remember to bring my wallet or some kind of food to hold me over on a long day on the river…I returned home beat, tired, and starving, but totally fulfilled and content. Weird how that works
Fly Fishing the Elements. Provo River January 24th, 2009.
Jan 29th
Aaron and I went Fly Fishing on the Lower Provo River this last Saturday. Here are some pics from our couple hours on the river.
When you have an itch you need to scratch
Jan 27th
Another video Survivorman style for the Fly Fishing Frenzy collection.
I work for myself and during the week I find myself working out of my house or my office I also crash at friends office’s around the area, really where ever I can get an internet connection I can work. On this day I was working out of Sean Whalen’s office, a close friend of mine, which is near the mouth of Provo Canyon. Sean is only a few steps away from being an official Frenzier and as a mater of fact has been featured on a few posts, Huntington Creek Utah and Provo River Caddis Hatch. I had put all my fishing stuff in the car that morning and wanted to hit the Provo River for a few minutes during the day. Now, yes because I work for myself I can take lunch anytime but for the purpose of the post I wanted to show and explain how close it is for anyone working around the Utah County area to get on the river during lunch time and enjoy a short few minutes fishing. As you will see from the video it was snowing, windy and cold so I imagine that not many people would want to hit the river on days like this but still for us crazy fisherman when you have the itch you need to scratch. Enjoy!!!
Winter Rainbows
Jan 22nd
I pose a question, why do I catch more Rainbow Trout in the winter?
Now this just might be my experience and maybe due to where I fly fish the Provo River but the majority of the fish in catch in the winter months are Rainbow Trout compared to the opposite the during the other seasons. According to a study done in 2000 on the lower Provo Brown Trout make up about 78% of fish population while Rainbows are at 12% and other species make up the additional 10%. Now I know that this study is 9 years old but I am sure that the numbers haven’t changed to much. So again, why do I catch more Rainbows in the winter, looking at the numbers you should always be at about a 7 to 1 ratio. These fish are are also shaped like footballs and have unbelievable colors, why is this? I know I could take the advice from one of our last posts, Get Better at Fly Fishing, and research more my question but I wanted to ask the Fly Fishing Frenzy crew what they think about it. I would love to get some great feed back and follow this post with part 2 about Winter Rainbows.
Makes some comments and educate me.
