I had one hell of a fly fishing day last Monday. I was on a business trip to Salt Lake City. The conference didn’t start until Tuesday so I saw a really nice opportunity to get in some fishing on my old home river. The Provo River is in such a beautiful setting that even if I didn’t catch any fish, I would be thrilled to just be in the midst of the grand snow covered mountains surrounding the Heber Valley.
I wanted to better my chances of catching trout so I hired a guide from Four Seasons Fly Fishers. His name is Craig Costa.
I met him at the store around 9:15am. The sky was clear and the ground was covered in snow. The temperature was in the teens but it didn’t feel that bad. I think the adrenalin warmed me up.
We went to an area outside of Midway to start. We trudged through the snow with pretty high hopes of catching some fish on a 2 fly rig with midge nymph dropper.
We tried a few locations before I finally caught a trout. It wasn’t a big fish, but it was still a cold water trout. Something I miss in Texas quite a bit.
I ended up catching 5 fish including one on accident when I wasn’t looking and a white fish which I had never caught one before. It had one hell of a set of kissers on it. It fought very differently from a trout but it was still fun.
I think I did about as good as anybody could on that could day. We saw a very small midge hatch and no BWO’s which were supposed to have started already.
Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and Craig, my guide, was outstanding. He taught me a lot about rigging up the optimal set up for nymphing on the Provo and also on finding where the fish are. He was very easy to talk to. I had a great conversation with him. We even had some stuff in common.
After the fishing subsided, I was off to the AEG Media Fly Fishing Film tour in Salt Lake City. It was great to see the turnout (about 300 people) who were all there with the same interest. Much was said about the Pebble Mine issue in Alaska. I’m absolutely appalled by it and am telling everyone I know to get involved. It’s something that we do have a say in and should do the right thing and not be silent.
Back to the working world and warm water fishing.