Provo River - April 13 - 14

Provo River

Water is perfect this year.
Lower Provo on Friday was rough.

I went 4 for 8 on nymphs. Nice Blue Wing hatch in the afternoon. My flies were laughed upon by the browns. My Dad and Brian did not do well. They are not nymph ninjas like I.

Middle Provo on Saturday went much better. Despite the sun, there was an epic BWO hatch all afternoon. BWOs came off for over 3 hours in good numbers.

Last two hours had fish rising in solid numbers for duns on the surface.

I struggled to find a dry that would work. I tried a BWO cripple and caught one.

Then I just put on the old, reliable, size 18, full-hackle dun. It took some coaxing, but I landed three fish on that guy. All told, I went 6 for 9 on Saturday.

No monsters were landed but all fish were 12-15 inches with a lot of zip in them. What is that whole 'only rainbows jump' deal? These guys were all over the place.

Brian and Dad also did pretty well on Saturday (10 and 8 fish, respectively)

-Entertaining anecdote of the trip -

Eric is fishing the hatch and frustrated with his cripple pattern.

Brian says 'Can I try it up there by you?'

'Sure' replies Eric.

Brian steps up to within 8 feet of Eric and catches a fish on his 2nd cast.

'You jerk' states Eric. 'You are not supposed to catch fish up here'.

Brian laughs as Eric continues to utter oaths against his existence.

Provo rocks and the cabin in Heber is sa-weet.

e

Bluegill at Halverson Lakes

My Pa and I took the kids down to Halverson Lakes by the Snake River for Bluegill and Bass fishing on Friday afternoon (6th). We had a lot of fun and ended up with 6 bluegill and 3 bass. Biggest bluegill was 9 inches. Biggest bass (largemouth) was 11 inches.

The kids were using the good ole' bobber and worm. Dad and I were using leech patterns and slow retrieves. The black leech seemed to be a better lure than other colors.

It is a nice place to take kids in the spring. There is about a mile hike to get into the two lakes. So that was a little long. My three year old was pretty tired when we walked back out in the evening. The loop trail was sandy but pretty even and wide. I would take the 'high road' when walking in again. The trail loop to the south is probably a little longer. At the lake, there were rocks along the shore for kids to scramble around on and lizards and snails to chase. There are a lot of leeches, so I wouldn't let the kids wade in the water very much.

According to one of several 'regular' float tubers there, the water is clear in March and May and cloudy in April. Runoff pours over the cliff above the lake in a waterfall and murks the water a bit during April. It was going full bore Friday.

My eleven year old caught her first two fish completely on her own and had a lot of fun. I would imagine the temps can get pretty hot in the summer. This is a great place for kids in the spring and fall. Fun trip. Fish on.

Belated SFB trip

This is a belated post as I went to Tucson right after this trip to the South Fork of the Boise. I went with Mark Thueson and I got schooled! Mark showed me that I have a lot to learn still about this river. I did real well landing many whitefish but could not bring a rainbow to the net. Mark meanwhile was busy landing nothing but rainbows and some real beauties at that! The worst part is when he came up to were I was fishing and landing whitey after whitey and he instantly lands a beautiful rainbow. A few casts later and BAM, another fish on. He was kind enough to let me in on his secret. I will keep that in my hip pocket so I can look good when I go out with one of you mugs.

March 26th - Owyhee

Fished the Owyhee with my Pa last Monday.
Water levels are up to a decent level but the water is still fairly cold.
Went 2 for 4 on browns. All fish in the 15-17 inch range.
From about 1 -230 p.m. they were feeding on mayflies on top.
I was able to get them to take a size 16 emerging mhaogany dun pattern on top.
I think the flies coming off were BWOs and March Browns. Not sure if they were actually mahogany duns.
The fish would not hit a standard dun pattern. It had to be an emerging dun. I think a cripple pattern would have worked as well but I didn't have any.
They also hit a size 18 pheasant tail nymph.

Fishing is cool.
e