The Utah DWR has released 3 more river otters on the middle section of the Provo River, with the stated goal of establishing a population of 25-30 otters on the section. Also recently, the DWR said that overpopulation of trout is stunting the growth of the the trout population on that stretch of the river (KSL 5 TV).  Perhaps this is an attempt to reduce the trout population.  Interestingly, the DWR reported the same stunting of growth on the Green River which already has a steady population of otters, so perhaps they may not be the answer, or at least not the complete answer. I don’t really have anything against otters and have spent time enjoying watching them in the past on the Green River.  In fact one time I was guiding my cousin on the Green and we had stopped to land a fish.  I mentioned to him as we sat that there were otters on the river and maybe we would see them. I stood up to pull my anchor and to my surprise a whole family of otters were standing on a rock near the boat watching us.  Pretty funny.

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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 … Continue Reading

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 … Continue Reading