Provo River Fishing Report Late May; high flow

With the high water flows, the Fly Fishing theme on the Provo River has been the same the last several weeks and is expected to be the same until flows return to normal for the summer.

Though the current water released from Jordanelle is slightly less than in previous days (985 vs 1095 cfs), the flow is still extremely high compared to normal.

Continue to look for slower water on the inside bends and along the banks. Fish deep, so add more weight and length than normal to your bounce rig. Yes, if you want to catch fish on the Middle Provo while the flow is high, you will probably have to fish under the water. But fish are there and they are feeding!

***Reminder, be very careful if wading in the Middle Provo and make sure to wear your wading belt. The Lower Provo in Provo Canyon is too dangerous to wade (see video from last week’s fishing report) and this is likely to continue for several more weeks.

Since we already know what the fish are doing in the Middle Provo this week and since we wanted to catch some trout on dry flies and because this report is also supposed to cover other local areas, we decided to make a trip to Soldier Creek this week.

The Middle Provo is not Un-fishable!

We found as many folks fishing Soldier Creek as we have ever seen. That said, we fished close to other folks on occasion, but everyone we saw was respectful and we never felt crowded.

Most anglers we talked to were also looking for places to fish other than the Middle Provo because according to some, it was “un-fishable” due to the high water flow. They were surprised that we didn’t agree.

Your normal favorite fishing spots on the Middle Provo may not be “fishable”, but we found plenty of fish the last two weeks (Read previous fishing reports; 5/15/17 and 5/20/17).

Trout at Soldier Creek are Wary and Well Educated

Soldier creek is running clear and cold (upper 40s °F) with only about 30 cfs being released from Strawberry Res. The fish are wary and have been well educated.

Fish are not too hard to approach, but you must get good drag-free drifts or you simply will not catch fish. In clear water on a bright day, we had better success using 6X tippet than with 5X and fish were more likely to hit when clouds were over head instead of bright sunshine. This can also be a challenging place to cast dry flies in strong, shifting winds.

Both midges and Blue-wing olives (BWOs) were hatching. The brook trout appeared to be focused on the BWOs and the brown trout were focused on the midge hatch.

Others reported that fish were hitting everything on top early in the morning (you know how it is… “you should’a been here this morning”…), but we found fish to be very selective and had to work very hard to catch a few on top (Jim’s special CDC BWO emergers).

Most fish were feeding under the water on emergers and we watched trout illuminated in the sunshine in one of the beaver dam pools doing just that.

After we proved to ourselves we could still catch trout on dry flies, we tried a variety of techniques just to see what else was working. We also caught fish swinging woolly buggers and black ants and Jim caught several fish on a midge rigged with an in-line bounce rig, including a beautiful, un-scarred 18 inch brown trout.

Another great day and another beautiful place to fish in Utah.