11th Day Fly Fishing – March 28th, 2023 – Lower Provo River, Utah
In a normal season, the BWO’s would begin coming off in mid-March and by the 28th you would expect some serious hatches. Having not been out for a couple of weeks, I chose today for the weather. Finally a warm up into the 50’s. Next weekend we plan to be back up in Victor but it is mostly a ski trip, so I needed to get out today.
The highway up Provo Canyon follows the river and right off the bat, I noticed many. many cars parked on the side of the road and lots of wadered up bodies standing in the river. As I reached my usual spot, I saw 6 cars parked there. Way more than usual! But spring was finally threatening so I get it. But still, this was a Tuesday. The Provo River is close, too close to a million plus people and several thousand fly fishermen. Plus the stream is very healthy and has a very robust trout population.
After parking I made a quick scan of the area I like to fish. Thankfully only one fisherman upstream, and downstream of where I planned to fish. As for rigging, I was hoping for a BWO hatch. After all it is late March. At this elevation, they should be thick right now. However, this winter has been super cold and so is the water. I needed a back=up plan in case there was no hatch, and the back-up was streaming soft hackles. The right size and color could be deadly. My go-to under these circumstances would be my Scott G2 3wt. But, last month in anticipation of big hatches, I put a new Cutthroat furled leader on it. Great for the dry fly fishing, not right really for swinging soft hackles. At least that’s what I rationalized at the time. As I am writing this, I’m thinking it could have worked fine with a little extra fluorocarbon tippet. Trout Hunter of course.
So I grabbed my Scott G2 4wt, equipped with a Galvan reel, packed my fly boxes into my vest and headed for the water. Vest? Yes! First time since fall. You see in cold weather I wear my Simms shell and my net, tippet and other essentials like nippers and hemostats attach to the jacket. Well, today it was too warm for a jacket. Mid 50’s I think. Packed my baetis box (PMDs, BWOs, Mahoganies, etc.), my dry fly box which has a lot of good attractors, my midge box and my soft hackle box. Ready for the water.
Lots of snow in the canyon still. Trying to avoid post holing, I tried to stay on the packed snow as I mad my way upstream. At one point, the bank became very steep so I sat on my ass and slid all the way to the water. I immediately discovered a couple of rising fish near the bank. Dang! I wish I had brought my 3wt! Anyway, there is no way I’m going back to the truck via that snowfield! So I rigged the 4wt with some 5X tippet and a size 24 black midge and began casting. Right away I realized the 5X with a fly that small was a mistake. I was thinking about my options. The 5X was the weight I wanted to use with my soft hackles and I wasn’t sure about my fly selection. But the rises were sporadic and I decided to head upstream and swing soft hackles.
It was just 1pm and I felt that there was a solid chance that the midge hatch would get thicker. I passed a guy who was having regular success with a nymph rig. But nymphing was always my last resort and today was no exception. As I moved up toward my favorite soft hackle run, I noticed that the flows had increased since the last time I fished it back in February, almost exactly a month prior. Thinking about two tungsten bead soft hackles. One size 14, the other size 16. At the time I considered a 16 and an 18, but I don’t tie many, and none so far with beads. So 14, 16 it was. As I worked my way down the run, it was very slow at first and at the halfway mark I got my first eat, a violent tug. The thrill was back! I love soft hackle eats! In any case, this one stayed on and it was a respectable 12 inches long. Five steps downstream later, I had my second eat, right up next to the far bank and only a second after the fly hit the water. A few casts earlier, I decided go with a single soft hackle and I chose the size 16 soft hackle with a green tinsel bogy and CDC soft hackle. The 2 fly rig was no longer working. The two flies were twisting in the faster current. The Provo is a rich biome for insects and there is always plenty to eat, so feeding fish tend to hang out in these faster currents. A tungsten bead was essential, in order to get the fly to a reasonable depth. But it turned out that this size 16 soft hackle with a tungsten bead was able to sink effectively.
This second fish is a bigger fish and he made a few big jumps and put up a nice fight since I had to bring him up against the current. A few steps later I caught another fish on but this one was not as big as the last fish but bigger than the first fish and this one jumped about five times! A few casts later and I was at the end of my run and it was on to my next adventure!
My next adventure decided to take me upstream where in a relatively calm eddy, several fish were rising and regularly. This time I decided to rig correctly. To the 5X that was on there earlier, I tied a piece of 6X. Now it felt right and with the small flies, definitely an improved drift. The first came on almost right away, once I got the fly right. It was about 2:15pm in the afternoon and the baetis/BWOs began to hatch. The baetis were really small, size 20. I have a my go-to baetis that small, a green sprout in size 22. Right after tying that on I picked up a really nice fish, then things got quiet. As I began to see more BWOs, I went up in size. I figured a BWO cripple in a 16 might be the ticket, but I was wrong. Nothing. In reality, the BWOs never came out in large enough numbers to justify the switch in the first place. I guess it was just wishful thinking on my part.
It is now 3 0’clock and we are now about an hour into the hatch, the baetis/BWO activity has clearly subsided, so I switch back to a midge pattern. In this case, a size 24 midge/Adams with a grizzly hackle. The midges I’m seeing on the water are definitely grey and fairly small. A couple of heads were coming up about 2′ off the edge and I launched a perfect cast to the larger of the two and got the eat. This fish decided to run to swifter current and I had to tighten the drag, and steer him away from it. I was surprised when he came to the next how big he was, a solid 15″ brown. This fish would be the FOD (fish of the day).
By 4pm the hatch was subsiding and I was getting a bit tired. As I was walking along the snowbank, I realized that there were still rising fish further downstream, but a couple more dudes were there working it, so rather than try to wedge myself between them, I decided to call it. To summarize, I had three fish to the net swinging soft hackles and four fish on dries. It was a good day and I will be back. Most likely in early May for caddis!
Here is the first fish on soft hackles:
This was the biggest fish on soft hackles, and below that the biggest fish of the day the FOD:
