Of Snows and BWOs

One of the best parts of fishing for me is the anticipation and preparation. All week long, monotonous cubicle work can be endured because I know what reward the weekend will bring: time for renewal, time for crisp air, time for my passion. Time to go fly-fishing. Man was not created or designed to sit in front of a computer screen for hours on end after all. So to wake up to a major snow storm on Saturday morning after planning all week long to be on the Middle Provo River certainly was a challenge to my core committment to the outing. Such weather tests not only my committment to, but also my love of, the sport. I like to think I am inured to the cold having grown up in Utah and spent a lot of winters dealing with temperature extreme's, but that doesn't necessarily make getting out of the door easy when it's snowing sideways. Fortunately, my nephew was not daunted by the snow storm, so I was able to feed off his excitement as we drove up Parley's. The waters of the Middle Provo were very windy and choppy in the Heber Valley, a nightmare for casting a fly. So we soon decided to go with the "heavy artiliery" of streamers to keep the casts forward and low.

Zak had never tried this technique before so I was eager to see if streamers could really "change his life as a fly-fisherman" as some purport, or at least put a dent in his head if he didn't pause long enough on the back cast. He slayed a nice brown trout rather deftly - maybe not life changing, but at least good for a few obnoxious yeehaws and chest bumps on river's edge.

Moving further upstream, we eventually came across a section of windless water. We were happy to see a few fish up on the surface and no competing crowds. The Mid can be packed on the weekend, but the cold weather drove away the weak-willed. Around 1 pm, the snows finally started coming down hard. Simultaneously, the fish really began to rise in droves to a size #20 BWO on the surface as well. The snow apparently sparked some mass feeding instinct in them. There were times when there were 20-30 fish rising all in tandem - no joking.

We had on 5 layers each so we managed to remain pretty warm.The fishing remained hot as well till about 4 pm, when the hatch finally died down and we were thoroughly wet. Certainly surreal to see so many fish coming up with so much snow falling down.