I recently had the opportunity to get out on the Lower Provo River just outside of Provo Utah and do a little fly fishing. Not knowing the area and having limited time to fish, I sought the help of a local guide. After scouting the internet for local guides and reading reviews, I contacted Rocky Mountain Outfitters and booked a trip. What a great decision that turned out to be. I met up with my guide Andrew at and after a quick fitting of waders and boots we were off to our location on the river.
Andrew asked me if I wanted to catch a lot of fish on dry flies, or take a chance of maybe catching some bigger fish on nymphs with a possibility of a midge hatch later in the day. With that, we were off and about 15 minutes later arrived at our spot on the middle Provo River. It was 18 degrees outside whenever we stepped out of the truck, but as beautiful as this place was I did not care if I spent the entire afternoon freezing to death in a fishless river.
Thankfully though, that was not going to be a problem for us. On the very first cast of the outing a inch brown trout my first one ever ate my fly size 18 sow bug and Andrew examined the contents of his stomach and it was empty. After examining the contents of his stomach and a quick picture he was released to fight another day. On the Provo River, you are allowed to keep two brown trout under 15 inches which meant this one was too big to keep.
A few casts later, I was hooked up again. This time with a bigger fish. It immediately ran upriver and felt a little different than my first.
After a few minutes of finessing him on the 3 wt and super light tippet, Andrew scooped the net under a nice rainbow. With an enourmous head for such a short body, we speculated that this was likely an old fish and on the decline. Regardless, it was a beautiful specimen and I felt fortunate to have tricked it into biting with a fly.
