My friend Scott came into town last minute so I tried to line up a few days when I could go out and fish. He specifically wanted to target cutthroats but day one did not leave enough time to get to cutthroat water so we headed up to the Provo for a few hours. Scott just barely missed a fish and after working the banks of the river for a bit we decided to go try the pond-like areas I had scouted out one a few weeks earlier. We saw a few inactive fish holding right on the banks that were hardly moving. Scott was working a bugger on a floating line and had a follow or two but no hook-ups. I had not changed rigs and had a zebra midge dropper off a san juan worm. I was in some shadows and happened to see a smaller brown just holding off the bank right in front of me. I lowered the midge pattern so it was practically on the fishes nose and I started jigging it up and down. As soon as I gave it a little motion the fish opened its mouth and sucked it in. It was hilarious and reminded me of catching bluegill by jigging a shiny bare salmon egg hook in front of their noses when I was a boy.
We then headed to a different section of the pond and Scott started stripping his bugger over some moss beds. He immediately started to get follows and hits. It was fun watching. He would cast out and start stripping and out of no where a fish would pop up out of a groove in the moss and start following the fly. He had a lot of fish come and strike at his fly. He would of landed a half dozen fish but they managed to spit the hook or short strike the fly. On one occasion though the fish was persistent and sucked the fly in which resulted in a nice brown.
Although we only landed a couple fish at our first few stops we had a lot of action which kept things interesting. We then headed to a favorite hole of mine and started nymphing. Scott missed what looked like to be a nice rainbow. One good flash and the fish was off. However, he did nail a fat little bow a little later on.
There were some golden stoneflys coming off and laying eggs but no fish were rising.
Scott tried a stonefly nymph but not much action resulted in the attempt. He eventually switched it up and put on a leech. After a cast or two he pulled back to make another cast and I saw a brown heading at mach 3 for the fly. The fly left the water a millisecond too fast and the brown porpoised on the surface like a tuna crashing bait. A few casts later the same brown (as far as I could tell) nailed the leech. Not a big fish but very aggressive to say the least.
Soon we had to head to the car as our time ran out. Quite a bit of action and a few fish made for a great couple hours on the water. On the way home we talked about cutts and where we planned to target them.
My friend Scott came into town last minute so I tried to line up a few days when I could go out and fish. He specifically wanted to target cutthroats but day one did not leave enough time to get to cutthroat water so we headed up to the Provo for a few hours. Scott just barely missed a fish and after working the banks of the river for a bit we decided to go try the pond-like areas I had scouted out one a few weeks earlier. We saw a few inactive fish holding right on the banks that were hardly moving. Scott was working a bugger on a floating line and had a follow or two but no hook-ups. I had not changed rigs and had a zebra midge dropper off a san juan worm. I was in some shadows and happened to see a smaller brown just holding off the bank right in front of me. I lowered the midge pattern so it was practically on the fishes nose and I started jigging it up and down. As soon as I gave it a little motion the fish opened its mouth and sucked it in. It was hilarious and reminded me of catching bluegill by jigging a shiny bare salmon egg hook in front of their noses when I was a boy.
We then headed to a different section of the pond and Scott started stripping his bugger over some moss beds. He immediately started to get follows and hits. It was fun watching. He would cast out and start stripping and out of no where a fish would pop up out of a groove in the moss and start following the fly. He had a lot of fish come and strike at his fly. He would of landed a half dozen fish but they managed to spit the hook or short strike the fly. On one occasion though the fish was persistent and sucked the fly in which resulted in a nice brown.
Although we only landed a couple fish at our first few stops we had a lot of action which kept things interesting. We then headed to a favorite hole of mine and started nymphing. Scott missed what looked like to be a nice rainbow. One good flash and the fish was off. However, he did nail a fat little bow a little later on.
There were some golden stoneflys coming off and laying eggs but no fish were rising.
Scott tried a stonefly nymph but not much action resulted in the attempt. He eventually switched it up and put on a leech. After a cast or two he pulled back to make another cast and I saw a brown heading at mach 3 for the fly. The fly left the water a millisecond too fast and the brown porpoised on the surface like a tuna crashing bait. A few casts later the same brown (as far as I could tell) nailed the leech. Not a big fish but very aggressive to say the least.
Soon we had to head to the car as our time ran out. Quite a bit of action and a few fish made for a great couple hours on the water. On the way home we talked about cutts and where we planned to target them.
