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I visited family in Utah over the Fourth of July
weekend, and had the opportunity of fishing the Provo on a Saturday
morning.
Many of you have probably read about how popular
the Provo is; believe it. I spent time on the Lower Provo, which is that
portion of the river below Deer Creek Reservoir. I suspect my perspective
on how popular the river is was/is slightly skewed due to certain factors, such
as 1) it was Fourth of July weekend, so lots of folks were out recreating, 2)
the weather has been 100+/- degrees there, so folks recreate out on the water,
3) it was a Saturday, and 4) the section I fished was the closest to town
(Provo). Regardless, though, I understand this water gets hit
hard.
That section of the Provo is located in a
relatively narrow canyon, and the sun didn't peak over the hill until between
8:30 and 9 am. The cfs was relatively low (400), but the bottom was dark,
the river relatively narrow, and flowing pretty well, in places, to
the extent I wasn't familiar with the river, when I arrived at 7 am I didn't
venture too far out in to the river and fished close in to shore, passing up
some likely looking spots further out in the river that I planned to come back
and fish when the visibility was better.
Surface feeding was negligible. Over the 4
hours I fished, I saw 3 rise, 2 of them by the same fish. The fly
fishing technique du jour on the Provo is typically drifting small nymphs; I had
on a #16 scud as the point fly and a #18 biot mayfly nymph and later a #18 CDC
beadhead serendipity as the trailers.
I caught a chunky 15" rainbow (on the
scud) just below a bridge, and then later rolled a very nice (I'm guessing
middle to upper teens) brown a little later. As the light was starting to
show up in the canyon, I ventured back downstream to the places that I had
passed. As I rounded the corner, I was stunned and dismayed to see
probably 30 people on the river (on a section about 1/10 of a mile long), of
which between 20-25 of these were fly fishing. Each riffle held 2 to 4
fisherpersons, and there were singles in between each seam and riffle.
Wow! That wasn't even counting the kayak or rafts that were floating by on
an ever-increasing frequency.
Discouraged, but having still another couple of
hours before my brother-in-law was to come pick me up, I trudged back around the
corner to the spot that earlier yielded the rainbow. At least I
didn't have to see all those fisherpersons! Alas, there were now two vans
from a commercial rafting outfit, with probably 4 rafts and 30 people, prepping
for departure. I hurriedly changed my biot nymph to the serendipity, made
a few drifts before the rafts came through, and was promptly fast to what proved
to be a beautiful 17"+ brown trout. He did a triple-toe-loop jump out of
the water, used the fast water to his advantage and made me chase him 60 yards
downstream. A couple of double-salkows later, I led him into some calmer
water for a release.
There was now a line to launch rafts, so I fished
some less productive water for a short while before leaving the
river.
I'd like to try the river during a time of year
when there may be fewer boaters and fisherpersons; I'm betting the fall could be
really good. The river record is a 17# fish, I believe, and the river is a
beautiful little river. Definitely something to try if you're ever out
that way.
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