Provo River Return

Provo River brown trout

In my most recent post, I looked back on a cross-country fishing/blogging trek I did with one of my boys 11 years ago. That post reminded me of one of our favorite stops — the Provo River in Utah — and of a brief return to the Provo with my daughter Autumn a couple of years ago.

Autumn and I also made it all the way to the Pacific Coast by car, but our trip was mostly vacation, and the primary objective was to see the world’s largest trees (sequoias), tallest trees (redwoods) and oldest trees (bristlecone pines). We had time for a couple of fishing stops, and the Provo was close enough to a possible route home that I couldn’t resist a return visit.

Good that we stopped. The river was substantially more crowded than it had been nine years earlier, and we struggled a little initially to find decent looking spots where we weren’t stepping in too close to where someone else was fishing. We ended up finding a nice section down a trail, though, and thick-bodied brown trout were plentiful and willing to play I didn’t count, but we caught a lot of trout, and most were good ones!

Trout in the Provo mostly see flies, and our Rebel Tracdown Minnows and Crawfish prompted a lot of action from feeding brown trout.

My experience with Asher on the Trout Trek had been similar. I’m pretty sure we caught more fish and better fish from the Provo than anywhere else on the trip — and in both cases, most fish were brown trout. We also caught most of our trout on Tracdown Minnows. The biggest difference was that he and I had far less competition from other anglers.

I’d first learned about the Provo River from a friend who had gone to school at Brigham Young, which is located in Provo, Utah. The best waters were only a half hour from campus (and some areas even closer), so it was an easy escape for him. At the time, the Provo’s trout-filled waters were largely undiscovered, and the few other anglers who used the he river mostly fly-fished. Like what Asher, Autumn and I found (except to an even greater extent, I’d guess) the trout would readily attack his lures.

The Provo is no longer a hidden gem, but it remains a gem. I’d head that way tomorrow if it wasn’t 1,896 miles from my house!

Utah's Provo River

 

 

A Few More Favorite Things

Yesterday, I blogged about a few of my favorite things from the Rebel Trout Trek. Specifically, I shared my favorite wildlife sighting, forest, mountain range and fish from the trip. I'd like to jump in where I left off and continue with trip favorites for one more day.

Favorite Fish I Caught
Although my favorite fish of the trip were a couple of fat rainbows that Asher caught, I also had a clear favorite fish of my own. Oddly, I'm not positive what species it was. I initially dubbed the big trout I caught from one of the Delaney Butte Lakes as a rainbow, but from closer examination of the colors and looking at reference photos, I sort of think it was Snake River cutthroat. Whatever the species, it was a whopper that hammered a Rebel Wee-Craw, fought hard, and barely fit in the net.

Favorite Landscape

In terms of overall scenery in a single place, nowhere comes close to Yosemite Valley in my mind. From El Capitan (highest sheer cliff in the world) to Half Dome to all of the waterfalls, everything is just so grand. In truth, everything towers so far above the valley that it's hard to grasp how big any of it is. Our visit was too brief, and visiting such a popular national park during a weekend probably wasn't the best strategy. Nevertheless, seeing the valley again and fishing between the cliffs still ranked as one of my favorite overall trip experiences.

Favorite River
I should say "favorite rivers," I suppose, because this one remains a tie in my mind. I thoroughly enjoyed fishing the Madison River in Montana and the Provo River in Utah, and both left me longing to have more days to explore other river sections. Both produced really good action from quality trout and offered outstanding public access. Also, at both rivers, Asher and I were pretty much the only anglers who were not fly fishing, which to me spells opportunity for showing the trout something different.


Favorite Lure
Asher and I caught fish on a bunch of different Rebel Lures and at times stream size or conditions dictates using some specific lure. Rebel Tracdown Ghost Minnows were the top producers, though, and the lures we ended up using the most frequently. A Ghost Minnow's slender profile makes it look like an easy meal to most fish, and reeling steadily causes a tight wiggle that's fairly subtle. That said, the weighting of this bait helps it handle fairly strong currents nicely, and twitching the rod tip makes the action much more erratic and prompts reaction strikes.
 

Favorite Fishing Accessory
Asher and I were repeatedly impressed by the design of the Cabela's Burl-Handle Landing Net that we used throughout the trip. The handle itself is comfortable in hand and doesn't slip when it's wet. Plus, the netting is rubberized, which make it easier on fish, and makes the hooks less likely to get caught in the net. The best feature, though, is a stretchy lanyard with a magnetized break-away design. I could hang the net out of my way from a vest or pack loop, but it was still in easy reach, and if Asher needed it or I wanted to go beyond the stretch range to land a fish or hold it in the water for photos, we could simply separate the magnet from the metal.

Tiny RV

Long story short, something got mixed up with our lodging reservation in an area where everything was booked for miles. After more than a little searching we stumbled across an RV park with a couple of vacant sites. It had the WIFI needed to do my blogging work and some other computer junk, and we could park to sleep without driving way into the mountains after dark to get to Forest Service land or get picked up for for vagrancy!

So a little after midnight, we finally parked the car. We weren't up for putting up a tent and really didn't want to make that kind of commotion, and of course my little car is filled to the gills. So we're just sleeping in the front seat till daylight or discomfort gets us moving. The good news is that we are camped on the banks of the Middle Provo River, which is exactly where I want to start fishing in the morning!

Useful Daydreaming

The line between my work and play has long been more than a little fuzzy, but lately it would be tough to separate daydreaming and doing my job. A few days ago I mentioned the Rebel Trout Trek, which my 10-year-old son Asher and I will be taking together this summer. Because summer lodging fills up early in many of those cool Western mountain places that we'll be visiting, now is the time to make reservations. Because one stop leads to another, I sort of needed stops laid our fairly well in order to start reserving rooms. Therefore I've been doing a lot of gazing at Google maps and reading about places like the Madison River, California's Eastern Sierra and various little lakes in the Colorado Rockies. And being pretty bitten by the trout bug, I can't really read about places like that without finding myself doing more than a little daydreaming.

Although I've been planning this trip for a while, and the whole route has been of my own design (with valuable input from friends who have fished some of the same waters) I don't think it has quite sunk in how many "bucket list" places Asher and I are going to get to sample in a few weeks. The river names are legendary. Madison, Big Hole, North Platte, Deschutes, Sacramento, Owens, Provo... Just to name a few.

Of course, I don't expect my bucket list to get shorter. It'll actually get longer because of the regions we'll see only quick samples of and the waters we'll pass near enough to learn about but not have time to fish. That's not a complaint. In fact it's a good thing. Next time I'll know better what I want to see more of, and I'm guessing it will be a more targeted trip back to one or two of the areas Asher and I will visit this summer.

There I go again. I'm more than four months out from this summer's travel, and I'm already daydreaming about the next trip!

#RebelTroutTrek

5 Favorite Waters that I've Never Fished

If you read my blog from time to time, you most likely know some of the waters I most like to visit on fishing trips: Santee Cooper, Reelfoot Lake, the Buffalo, White and New rivers... That list actually could go on for quite a while, I suppose.

Rarely mentioned are the waters I fish vicariously through web articles and photos and daydream about from time to time. Of course, when I dream about places I've never been, the fish are always biting, and I unfailingly choose the right baits and presentations. My wish list could go a lot of different ways, and top spots shift from time to time. Lately, though, I've been dreaming about trout waters, mostly in the Western U.S., where I've never done much fishing. With that in mind, here are five that really intrigue me.

Eastern Sierras - I've actually been to this astounding region once, but I didn't get to fish. It is a trout culture like none other I've ever seen, with a mix of catch-and-keep bait fishermen hitting heavily stocked high-country lakes and fly-fishermen working pristine high-country streams. The towns and the resorts are all about trout fishing throughout the warm months, and there are fly shops, outfitters, fishing resorts and bait shops everywhere you look. The scenery is splendid, and the trout grow big. You could spend all summer in the Eastern Sierras and fish different waters every day.

North Platte River - Rising in the mountains of Colorado and flowing north through Wyoming, the North Platte begins as a spectacular wild trout river and pauses in a couple of reservoirs, emerging to form a couple of the nation's most productive tailwater sections, with big and abundant trout of several kinds in more than one section. It can be waded or floated, offers good prospects year 'round and varies enormously in character and in how it fishes based on season and water levels.

Middle Fork Salmon River - I admittedly don't know much about the Middle Fork except that it's supposed to be wild, remote and tremendously beautiful and that it supports an excellent population of native cutthroat trout. Trips typically are set up as expeditions, floating multiple days in rafts or drift boats between canyon walls and camping by the river.

Provo River - Like the North Platte, the Provo has multiple sections, each quite different from one another in character, and each with its own intrigue. I'm extra aware of this river, which doesn't get talked about as much nationally as some other western flows, because of a friend who spent time in Salt Lake City and used to slip off into the mountains to catch trout whenever he got the chance. Like a lot of western rivers with special regulations, the Provo gets heavy use by fly-fishermen, but I don't think its rainbows and browns see many jigs or plugs.

Chile - If you're going to dream, you might as well dream big. Right? I don't know stream names or specifics about the region because I don't have reason to believe I'll ever travel to Chile. As far as exotic international adventures go, though, none intrigue me more than this part of the world, its river and its big and beautiful trout.