Mayflies of April

Just a few pics from the past few weeks.

March Brown Dun

March Brown Spinner

Provo River BWO Dun

BWO Spinner

While Andrew and I were playing outside in our yard, this BWO decided to pay Andrew a visit. For the past few weeks the blue wings have been abundant here in Logan.

Aaron's First Fish

Saturday was my friend Aaron's first time fly fishing. I decided to take him to the Weber in search of hungry trout. Fishing our first hole, about ten minutes into his fly fishing career he landed his first fish ever- a 15" white fish.

Needless to say, the day followed suit and Aaron continued to catch fish. He ended the day having landed 7 fish including the last fish of the day, a feisty 15" brown.

All of us know exactly what it is like spending time mingling with streamside trees. Aaron actually spent a lot less time tangled and hung up than most beginners.

It was a beautiful day on the river, many nice fish were caught, one more fortunate soul is now hooked on fly fishing, and one more wife will soon be complaining about money and time spent on an addiction. Sorry Brooke, but Aaron is a goner!

Weber River, BWOs, and Snow!

There is nothing like inviting your dad and brother to drive six hours to fish the Weber in spring. Everyone who fishes it this time of year knows how good it really can be. What they weren't expecting was that I was really inviting them to brave the elements and test their true love for fishing. I didn't plan it that way, but as it often turns out, mother nature decided to dump on us and soak us for all we were worth. As the pictures show, none of us wussed out and we all caught some nice fish.

Luckily Matt and I didn't have to travel too far to experience the wonderful March whether. As you can tell, Matt had a blast!

There were a few brief moments of sunshine when the heavens shone down on us and the blue-winged olives came out to say hello. Turns out the trout did too, and we caught some nice fish on dries.

John broke the top eight inches off his Sage about five minutes into the day. I had him a spare rod, but superstitions got the best of him and he thought his luck was with his rod; I thought he was crazy. Turns out he was right, and the goofball landed a dozen or more fish on his broken rod throughout the day. Like with everything he does, he knows how to make due with what he's got.

Diamond Fork and the Rowley Stone

Last fall I had a lot of success fishing the Rowley Stone on all the rivers I fished that have giant stoneflies. I also caught a lot of fish on size 10 and 12 Rowley Stones imitating drake nymphs on rivers that don't have giant stones. Turns out, it works just as good in the spring.

Diamond Fork is full of a variety of large stoneflies like this salmonfly nymph. Heavy stonefly patterns make the trout go silly!

Pocket water and seams along fast moving (well oxygenated) water are full of stonefly nymphs and trout. We had a great time catching trout from these areas.
We slid down the canyon a few miles to target some larger browns and lucked out once again with the Rowley Stone.

Weber River Sow bugs

The Weber River is full of sow bugs and large trout. No kidding! Brad, Phil, and I fished the canyon section just above Ogden early Saturday morning, and the bite was on. Almost every fish was caught on sow bug patterns, and despite the warm spring day there were very few fish rising.

On most rivers that have cutts and browns I automatically assume the big fish to all be browns or the odd white fish. Man was I wrong today! This giant cutt ate a sow bug just minutes after the big brown pictured below had taken one. Both were caught in the same riffle.
You can tell this fish had a long winter... skinny but a fighter!

Provo River Midges

I love to fish the Lower Provo in the early spring. Its this time of year when I see beautiful trout rise to take almost invisible bugs from the surface. What I really love to see are those same beautiful trout rise to take my tiny imitations from the surface then barrel and roll when they feel the prick of their lip, similar to the way this rainbow did.
Kohler had some nice fish take his 6X for a ride.
Adult midges were everywhere, and we even saw a few blue-winged olives, no doubt some of the first of the year.

The dries were fun to fish, but it was the pupa dropper below a cluster pattern that really hammered the fish.

South Fork Cutts

Kohler, Devin, and I fished the South Fork a week ago. Our day consisted of tons and tons of white fish and a few very nice cutts and bows. It was a lot of fun, especially when Kohler caught a dolphin-looking hog of a white fish. I still wish we would have got a picture of that pig. We caught most on nymphs and a few on adult midge patterns, including the biggest cutt of the day (Devin's 19 inch beauty). The fish were amazingly beautiful and I can't wait to get back up there.