Category Archives: Utah

Provo River Fishing Report 1/20/2010

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I had a great outing yesterday (Jan 20, 2010) to the middle section of the Provo River in Midway, UT.  It also happened to be my birthday.  I was very excited to get up there and had been planning this trip for a couple of weeks.  I got to the north parking lot around 10:30 AM and just as the snow was letting up. This combination turned out to be the right one as the fish were very active and hungry.  As soon as the snow stopped falling and the sun started to peak through the clouds there was a healthy hatch of black midges that had the fish feeding heavily.

I had in mind for sometime that I was going to fish streamers and try and get at some of the larger browns.  So that is the approach I took.  Within 10 minutes I had already landed two nice brown trout, the second being the fish of the day at just under 18 inches (to the left).  They were both aggressive strikes that left no doubt I was on the right track.  I was fishing an olive cone head sculpin pattern that is a cross between a muddler minnow and a wooly bugger.  I worked my way around through a few more runs and gave in to the siren song of the rising fish, but soon changed back as I was having a hard time seeing my flies in the light conditions.  In all I fished for about 6 hours and landed about 7 trout all of them quality fish.  Perhaps what I found most striking was how beautifully they colored they all were.  The yellows, reds, and blues were all very vivid.

I will also report that I nymphed for a little bit but didn’t meet with much success.  I lost the two brassies my son tied for me early on in the endeavor so I didn’t take a fish on them, but it was fun to give it a shot.

As for other observations on the day.  There weren’t a ton of birds out, but I saw a bald eagle fly overhead, some magpies, song sparrows, and heard chickadees all day.  It was a perfect winter fly fishing outing.

Here are the rest of my photos:

Local and Regional Outdoor News Roundup

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Here are a couple of interesting stories from the local news from both today and yesterday.  Currently in Salt Lake City we have the Outdoor Retailers Winter Market which I would love to be attending, but alas I am not an outdoor retailer so I guess that will have to wait for another year.
Outdoor Retailers Winter Market

Wildlife News
  • 40 bison will soon have a new home
  • Two chances to see bald eagles:  I have seen an eagle in each of the last 3 fishing trips I have taken.  I can recall a time not too long ago, when I never saw eagles or rarely on trips up to the greater Yellowstone region.  I am so amazed by how well they have come back from the brink of extinction.  As a kid if I saw a bald eagle it was a unbelievable sighting.  Well I still feel that way, but to my children it is a common place occurrence.  I think that is pretty great.  If you haven’t seen an eagle recently get out to one of these viewing events.  You won’t be sorry.
Yellowstone Earthquake Activity

Utah fishing reports

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Brett Prettyman of the Salt Lake Tribune has a blog that is always full of great information about fishing conditions and other Utah outdoor topics.  Today he has a some good reports for the state of Utah over at his blog.  Todays topics:

  • Flaming Gorge ice fishing “red hot”
  • Cisco Disco conditions changing at Bear Lake
  • Utah State Parks Reservoir Report

Check out his blog frequently for updates!

Fishing public waters on private lands

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According to Bretty Prettyman at the Salt Lake Tribune, there are a few new bills in the works that are working to allow citizens fishing access to public waters that flow through private lands.  This is something I can get behind.  In Utah we don’t have a lot of stream/rivers well suited for fly fishing and those that we do have, are either underneath a reservoir or run through large stretches of private land.  Some land owners have been good to allow fishermen access particularly on the Weber River in along I-80 near Coalville, Hoytsville, and Wanship. I guess my biggest concern about all of this is that people treat the land with varying degrees of respect and it is frustrating to see people leave their trash or who have trashed land owners property in other ways such as breaking fences or gates.  I think if common sense were more common and people could be trusted to follow the rules this wouldn’t really be an issue.  I hope bill can pass and even more if it does, I hope we as fishermen do all we can to respect the rights of land owners.

How about where you fish, are you able to recreate within a natural stream bed on private land or must you first ask permission?  What do you think of such legislation?

Weekend headline sharing plus 2 cents

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I came across a few interesting outdoors related headlines this weekend. Here is the run down:

  • Utah’s exotic species: The good, the bad and the ugly – The Salt Lake Tribune – This article covers several of the numerous introduced species to Utah – some loved and some not so much. Of they ones they list I am most annoyed by starlings, burbot, quagga and zebra mussels, and tamarisk. A couple of trees they didn’t list, but drive me nuts is the are chinese elms and sumacs; they are nearly impossible to kill. It strikes me as a bit hypocritical to pick and and choose which non-native species we tolerate. In just about every case on the list, I would be just as happy with the native counterpart in sport. Bonneville cutthroat trout are the native trout in Utah and they are fun to catch on the fly. I don’t know if I would miss brown or rainbow trout if they were never introduced but hard to imagine. I know that bighorn sheep were once abundant in the mountains here so not sure why they favored bringing goats in instead of recovering sheep.
  • Man catches carp the weight of Kylie Minogue – The Telegraph – Perhaps the best written headline of the weekend. I would like a to catch a fish that could be measured to a popular celebrity, perhaps the size of someone like Meatloaf or David Crosby. Anyway that is one MONSTER carp. Looks like something from an episode of River Monsters or Hooked. 
  • Utah Field Guide: Bonneville Cisco – Roughin’ It Outdoors on KUTV 2 – A little feature on a fish found only in Utah’s Bear Lake. A smelt-like remnant of the ancient inland sea that covered the region, Lake Bonneville. 
  • Dirty air has Utahns fleeing – Deseret News – Not my favorite because it is cool, just sick of the dirty air around here in our mountain home. I can barely even see the mountains today it is so dirty out there. Time to move to the country. Yuck.

The old Saltair

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Hopefully you are enjoying the historical photos from Shorpy I have posted the last few days.  If not, you will have to suffer through another. This time the photo features Saltair which is in my neck of the woods and is another by William Henry Jackson.  It captures the beauty of what Saltair used to be.  Back around the turn of the last century, Saltair was the THE place to go for a good time.  It had its own rail line from Salt Lake City and people would spend time swimming, eating, and listening to all the latest bands of the day.  Sort of a land locked Atlantic City boardwalk without the gambling.

These days, Saltair is a mockery of its former self.  After the original building burned down a couple of times, it was rebuilt using mostly concrete.  They still do concerts out there, but no one sticks around to swim.  In fact, being on the shore of a brine lake it often smells badly due to the marshy edges.  I have seen a few shows there including the Stone Temple Pilots on their first tour, Shawn Colvin, and Big Head and the Monsters.  Guess I haven’t seen a show there for a while.

Here is a link to another cool old photo from the glory days.

Cold Day, Big Flies

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I had a great outing today on the Lower Provo River in Provo Canyon, UT.  It started off rather sketchy as the day was really snowy and I wasn’t sure if my 20 year old Honda Accord was up to the task, but I figured if I just took it easy I could get there without any issue.  My usual 40 minute drive was more like 80 minutes, but once I got there I found I had the whole stretch to myself.  I went to Vivian Park and fished up from the bridge.  Given then weather I determined I would be nymphing.  It was about 18-20 degrees Fahrenheit and a constant snow was falling.  I had in mind to fish a fly I haven’t used in a while; a big, juicy cranefly larva pattern about size 6.  I trailed it with a size 14 red fox squirrel nymph.  For weight I used a BB size split shot and an 8 ft leader with 5x tippet.  On my fifth cast of the day, I took a nice brown trout about 15 in long.  It took to the air straight away after being hooked.  Once I landed it, I could see that he had eaten the cranefly larva.  Over the next 10 minutes minutes I landed two more fish both were mountain whitefish of decent size and both foul hooked.  I think they were taking the cranefly and I was hooking them with the RFSN.  The cranefly was big enough they couldn’t fit it in their tiny mouths.  I hooked 3 or 4 more browns ranging from 11-14 inches and all on the cranefly.  The fish of day had to be the 18 inch rainbow that was a healthy slab of a fish.  Rainbows aren’t common fare on the Provo River and this one as a great fish.  It took the RFSN.  The fish was a beautiful shade of steel blues and lavenders.  I had originally thought I was snagged when I hooked it but he eventually started moving and put up a pretty good fight.

By the time I hooked him I had run out of 5x tippet (I know, stupid) but had switched to 4x and it didn’t seem to be an issue and allowed me to play him a little harder.  I took a couple more browns from the same long run and then moved up several hundred yards.  The weather was getting colder so I called it a day.  Not a bad way to spend 3 hours.

Some additional notes from the trip.  I saw several american dippers, song sparrows, and a bald eagle flew over head through the snow.  I also observed at least 2 fish feeding up on the surface but didn’t make the switch to dries.  It was a fun trip.  Enjoy the slide show.