The LOWER Provo River

November 26, 2016

I flew to Utah to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family, in-laws, and to attend my cousins wedding.  Although I only had four days off and I had to fly to Utah and drive home in that time (10+ hour drive), I still found the time to sneak out for a few hours of fishing on Saturday afternoon.

I LOVE the Lower Provo River.  It is where I learned to fly-fish, and if you've read my blog, you know I fish it whenever I get home.  Thanksgiving weekend tends to get crazy, however, especially if there is good weather like there was this weekend.  The browns are getting to the tail end of their spawn, and many of the browns (which dominate the river) are spawned out and sickly, there are still a pile of people targeting them on their reds, and the river is a general madhouse.  Instead of battling the insanity, I decided to spend a few hours fishing much lower on the river.

The lower, Lower Provo River.  The shallow, slower riffle just off the island yielded a couple fish!

The lower, Lower Provo River (below Olmstead Diversion Dam) runs much smaller (due to the diversion dam!)  The regulations allow for bait, and due to these factors, the fish concentrations are much lower, and the average fish size is also smaller.  However, the angling pressure is also much lower.  Instead of fishing above the Diversion dam, where there may literally be an angler every 100 yards, I fished over half a mile of the lower, lower river, and never saw another fisherman.  Great decision in my book.

I started working down stream with a large black leech.  After an hour I was starting to think I had made a mistake.  I had not seen a single fish, and the only signs that fish even existed in the river were the small reds here or there against the shoreline.  Then, while working the tail of the last hole I intended to fish, I got a solid strike, and was treated to slow, powerful head shakes.  When the fish slowly rolled on the surface, I laughed - it was big whitefish!  In a river full of what should be aggressive browns, my first fish is a whitefish on a streamer.  Go figure!

Streamer eating whitefish.  I didn't know such a thing existed!

As I released the whitefish, I decided to work my way back upstream with a double nymph rig.  I kept is simple, with a glow bug and a small brassie.  Only half way through my first drift with the nymph rig I hooked into a small brown, and I started thinking - this could get good!

Greedy little brownie - it is nice to see a fish that isn't spawning.

For the next couple hours I was able to pick off quite a few more browns up to 15" or so, along with another nice whitefish.  The fish were holding in the slower riffles, and were pretty predictable.  It made for a fun couple hours of fishing.

 All too soon I had to head home for my daughter's first birthday party.  I had a great few hours on the water, caught more fish than I would have ever expected, and was SO pleased to have some water for myself.  I'll be back to Utah in about three weeks, and those rainbows and browns on the upper, Lower Provo River better be ready!

Mallards and dippers were all that I had to share the water with!