Winter Fishing

As winter is upon us, I reflect on the past season and I am somewhat sad to see the warm weather go. During the past few years, I have decided that the only real good reason to live in a climate where snow falls is that there are trout streams. With that being said, I am glad the cold weather is here. This past year I started in with the euro nymphing and it has been fun to learn and fish with this technique. It has caught an amazing amount of trout around this area throughout the year, as well, as quite a few whitefish! Last winter, I struggled to catch lots of fish. It was frustrating, but I hope to change that this winter. The other best part about winter fishing is that I end up having the river, or a lot of it, to myself. I don't have to bushwhack around the other anglers to try and find the next hole in the river. I simply just keep moving upstream without the nuisance of other anglers. It's not that I don't like other anglers, I love to see others out enjoying the sport I love, but it's nice not to have to jump them.

My winter fishing started yesterday as I hit up the Lower Provo and only saw one other angler. Fishing was better than expected as I caught some nice browns.

Tying flies has also been fun this year. Gilbert and I have our fly tying blog (Flytying123.com) up and running so go there to check out our latest patterns. Lately I have been into weaving flies. I haven't fished with the patterns to much yet as I have been trying to perfect the weave. Hopefully we can have some weaved flies up on our website in the next few months.

I hope you all are as excited as me to get out and enjoy the fishing here in the winter, hopefully with lots of snow!!!

Doesn't all this snow look fun?

The Dragon Warrior

Man, has this summer flown by. I have been busy with work, but I have managed to get some good fishing in. Pictures are to come once I can pay Gilbert enough money to get me a few pics(just kidding Gilbert). My latest trip came last Thursday night on the middle Provo. Flows are down to their winter flows and I wanted to check them out. I did really well with the Dragon Warrior(click here to check out the the tutorial on me and Gilbert's fly tying website). I also have had lots of fun fishing the Provo, and other streams here in Utah. Here are a couple photos from this summer.

The Olive Brassie, and other websites!

So here is one of my favorite spring time patterns.....the Olive Brassie. I tied it up so check it out, tie some up, and try it out on your favorite river. It imitates a large variety of bugs so don't be afraid of trying it. This video is also on our(gilbert and me) Flytying123.com website so go check it out. Also browse around on our new fly tying website. We are providing videos, tutorials, and other cool videos and posts about tying, fly fishing, and bugs.

If you are also in the area, and are wanting a guided trip on the Provo or Weber river, contact Utah Pro Fly Fishing, where they will make sure you catch a fish, or you don't have to pay. I know one of the Guides, Gilbert Rowley, and I know he will help you catch some fish.

Taking the brother on the river

About a week and a half ago, I took my brother Troy out on the Lower Provo to show him how to catch fish. He has been slow in getting himself out on the river so I kept inviting him to come and finally, I got him out. The flows had picked up some speed since I had been there so I went out a little before he got there to scope out a good spot. I found one, tied on a fly I have never used(size 12 pink scud) and I started nailing em. After he got there, I gave him one of those good flies, and he even ended up landing a couple. Overall, it was a good night of fishing.

Current Creek May 8th, 2010

With school being over, and with me and Brad getting all of our work done this week, I had today to get out and fish. I was feeling quite adventurous so I decided to go up to Current Creek. I had never been there and never talked to anyone who fished there so I didn't know what to expect. I ended up catching a bunch of rainbows, and just a couple of little browns. I thought that the creek was full of browns, with some rainbows, but after today, I would say there are a lot of rainbows, with some browns. I had fun, caught lots of fish, and learned a lot about creek. I can't wait to get up there and catch even more fish next time!

Middle Provo and the Burk!

Me and my brothers set out to hit the middle provo this on April 3rd. My brother Troy is just learning how to fish so we took advantage of some time to go hit the river. We woke up to a few inches of new snow and some cold temperatures. It was cold enough that the eyelits(spelling?) of our rods were icing up. That shouldn't happen in April, in my opinion, but thats fishing. We had fun, troy had a couple of fish on but was unable to land them, and then we hit the mysterious stream, and I caught this whopping 4 pound, 21 inch brown. It was a monster, and lucky for me, had my brother there to net him for me, or it might have taken some time of tiring him out before I could have netted him myself. Thanks Bros!

Lower Provo on April Fools Day!

My brother Brad called me up last thursday, telling me that it had snowed so no work could be done that day. He went on to tell me that he was willing to drive down the canyon and hit up my favorite spot on the lower provo. It was April Fools day, but he wasn't kidding about coming. He came down, and despite it being a bit chilly, we caught some good fish. It was probably the best day he has had on a river ever. Here are just a couple of the pictures of the many fish we caught on this fine day!!!! The flies of the day were of course the olive brassie and the orange opa!

Middle Provo and the big BURK!

After hitting my favorite spot on the Lower Provo, I went and hit my favorite spot on the middle today. I caught a lot of smaller browns and two 12-13 inch rainbows. After getting sick of catching smaller fish, I went and explored the burkemshaw(spelling??) There was a good hole and I caught lots of fish, and even one brown that surprised me. They were absolutely nailing the purple wooly bugger and I had lots of fun. Here are a couple of pics I took while there.







This here fishy was caught by a Derek Kohler creation "copper kohler bugger". Not only were the fish eating this fly, but they were coming out of their way to snatch this fly. It provided good entertainment for me and my brother Brad.

Days to Remember - March 25, 2010

March has been one of my favorite times to hit the Provo. Once the blue wings start coming off, the fish seem to crawl out of where ever the heck they like to hide in the winter and start eating. I decided to hit my favorite spot on the lower provo, of which I can't disclose, and it was amazing! I had once heard a guy say he had caught 50+ fish in one day, and I just kinda laughed because I didn't think it was possible.....
I was wrong. I fished for about 4-5 hours and I easily caught 50+ fish, and it could have been more had I landed all of them. I was happy to see fish everywhere! They were active and feeding, and it paid off to have the right fly......thee OLIVE BRASSIE. I even landed about a 18-19 inch rainbow that was hard to get in my net. I also landed my first double!! I was quite surprised as I was fishing a hole, and 2 fish came rolling out and fighting. I wasn't able to take the picture until I finally got them both in my net, but it was pretty cool. Enjoy the pictures, and Gilbert, tie up some olive brassies and use them and you too, will have a day to remember!!!!!

Fish Creek-Early March '10

With how warm the spring has been, I really wanted to get out to fish creek and check out this year's flows there. I even convinced my brother Brad to go with me, despite me worrying about the outflow from the dam. We got there and I was excited to see at least some water coming out of the dam, but it wasn't enough and fishing was fairly difficult. We did manage to pull a few out and still had some fun. We saw a lot of wildlife. Deer, elk, bald eagles, golden eagle(look to pic below, I tried to take pic of it but it flew away before I got a really good pic of it), and lots of ducks. There was also a lot of snow on the ground still. We kinda had a hard time getting downstream to go fishing trying to get through the snow. Snow shoes would have been a big help!

Late Winter FISHING!!!!

Late winter has provided some pretty darn good fishing despite the cold weather. I have fished both the Lower Provo and the Middle Provo, of which I have caught some pretty good browns. I also took a trip to the South Fork of the snake river in early February with Gilbert and a Devin Olsen. We got there and we were lucky enough for it to be beautiful weather, and the fishing was even better. We caught lots of whitefish and even threw in some nice lookin cutts.
Late Winter has also brought me a new way of fishing....the new and only way to nymph. Gilbert had been using this method of czech nymphing with a french style leader setup and I finally jumped on board. The first real time I used it was at south fork and it worked out great for me. In fact, towards the end of the day, we found this long deep stretch of water and we ended up staying there for a good hour catching whitefish. We had to end for two reasons. First, it was starting to get late so we had to start making our way back to car, and second because my arm was so darn tired of pulling in fish. The olive opa worked magic. I am still getting used to this style of nymphing but I am looking foward to learning this way of fishing and catching lots of fish as the warm season is quickly approaching us.


This was my first fish of the day. I had to try my new colored opa and on my fourth of fifth cast, I caught this beauty! The lavender opa is one of new favorites considering it caught a couple other nice fish this day!


This rainbow on the middle took the famous rowley stone!


Gilberts nice Cutt on South Fork


There were midges everywhere and all day on the Lower Provo!


This was probably the best lookin cutt of the day at South Fork and Devin caught it.

ICY Olive PT

This here fly is one of my favorite patterns that I just tied up at the end of this last year and it worked great for me. Its the first video that I have ever made and after viewing it myself, there are a few things I will do to make it a better video in the future. I hope you not only enjoy tying this pattern, but that you also enjoy catching some big fish on this pattern just like I have!!!!! ENJOY!!!!
ps-I realized after that I put the wrong video on and its not good quality at all so I will hopefully put the the right one on soon.

Hook: 12-18 TMC 2488
Bead: Silver tungston 7/64
Tail: Olive pheasant tail fibers
Body: Olive Pheasant tail fibers
Rib: Green BR wire
Thorax: Olive ice dub