Well thanks for tuning into KSL Outdoors, I’m Adam Eakle
with Mickey Anderson from Fish Tech and Mickey we are
along probably the most fished river in Utah, the Provo
River and today we are going to catch some fish. (Mickey
Anderson, Fish Tech Outfitters) yeah we are going to meet
with a couple of guides and they are great guys, they
really know the river well. They’re going to show us what
to use. We are going to let them set us up. (adam) they
are going to give us some of their trade secrets? (mickey)
they are, they are going to reveal a lot and this is going
to be a great learning experience. (adam) alright well
lets go learn. (mickey) let’s go.>
Right now the Provo river is teaming with Anglers, and a
lot of opportunity. Most fisherman have been chasing the
drake hatch on the Middle Provo and seemed to have
forgotten that the PMD hatch is still going on in the
lower Provo.
That’s where we found guide Jeff Harwin and his client
Brian.
(Mickey Anderson, Fish Tech Outfitters) Jeff when water
looks like this it’s kind of intimidating to a lot of
people. It’s hard to fish. I want to know how to fish it.
Set me up. (Jeff Harwin, Provo River Guide Service) ok, to
start off we are going to nymph fishing. Obviously we
don’t see any fish rising. So we’ll wait for that later to
throw the dry fly. Basically what we are going to do is
take a thirty pound leader, just the butt section and we
are going to put the indicator on first and what this
allows us to do is measure the depth of what we are going
to be fishing. Right here we’ve got a run that drops about
4-5 feet, so we are going to set up about an 8 foot rig.
(mickey) so about twice the depth of the water? (jeff)
about twice the depth yeah.
(jeff) especially when I’m nymph fishing, I know a lot of
people want to throw a tapered leader and what that does
is create a lot of drag and it takes more weight to get it
down. So what we are going to do is kind of lighten it up
and un-taper the leader and put a knot right here.
(Jeff) and I’m going to go 4X fluorocarbon for nymphing.
(Mickey) now you just did an over hand knot? (jeff) I did
just do an over hand knot. I’m going to put the 4X
(Jeff) tip in here and then tighten that down and all I’m
doing here is an improved cinch knot.
(Jeff) now you’ve got your first tag. And what I like to
do Mickey is I don’t like to put my fly on the top one. I
always like to put my fly on the bottom tag. So I’ll clip
this one and repeat the process.
(Jeff) so what I’m going to do is add two PMD numphs.
This fly is a fly you can get right at Fish Tech and this
one is Mercer’s Trigger Nymph. What I like to do is have
kind of an attractor, little bit flashy for this fast
water and then throw something a little more subtle behind
it. (mickey) does it matter flash top, flash bottom?
(jeff) I always put the flashy one on top.
(Mickey) that one is a lot of flash, the second one a
little more subtle? (jeff) the second one is going to be a
little foam pattern we call the pee-man demon and it’s
kind of a mayhem pattern, it’s just one that I tied up
yesterday.
(Jeff) now if we were on the middle Provo, I wouldn’t be
throwing any beads. On the lower they will still eat it.
What I do is just enough that I can get the weights on
there. (mickey) just a little over hand knot. (jeff) i do
a little over hand knot and the reason I do that is I
don’t want the weights to slip. If it gets caught on a
rock or just kind of drifting down. I’ve got my weights
right here and I’m using #1 split shot and I’m going to go
about 3-4 weights.
Jeff says, casting his heavy Provo River bounce rig is not
like casting a dry fly. It takes three easy steps to keep
you from tangling up.
(Jeff) pick it up, pause, and then chop forward. That’s
it, so I’m going to pick it up, pause and then chop
forward and let it drift in here.
Now it’s Mickey’s turn to try the rig.
(mickey hit) there we go. good one to. (jeff) nice, nice.
(mickey) he’s off. (laughs) well Jeff that was great
information, that was a good fish. I’m going to take this
and use it on different parts of the river and use it for
a long time to come. Thanks for all your help today.
to get ahold of Jeff or to have him guide you for a day on
the river, log onto provoriverguides.com. Coming up…
There’s gold in them there hills, as the DWR plant a
unique trout in a high Uinta Lake.
Mickey you are landing one of the better fish today.
Definitely one of the more pretty fish. We are going to
meet a guide to learn some more tactics? (mickey) we are,
Walter Foster, he’s going to help us out a lot. He’s a
guide on this river, spends a lot of time here, he’s going
to show us a little bit more. (adam) something different.
(mickey) a little different.
(Mickey Anderson) Walter I was just up on the river with
a dry. I stunk it up and there is fish all over. What am I
doing? (Walter Foster, Trout Tales Guide Service) well
lets figure it out. (mickey) first what fly should I have
been using? (walter) the first thing you want to do is get
an observation of what’s going on in the water. Generally
right on top here you are going to see some bugs hatching
and right now what we have is some PMD, little yellow
mayflies. So what we are going to try and do is match the
size, shape and color.
(Walter) and then the other thing is this time of year we
have the green drakes coming off. So, this green drake is
a big visible fly, easy to cast. And we are going to use
that for our demonstration to see the drift and
everything.
(mickey) with that fly that big, to get it to turn over,
what size tippet are you going use? (walter) on the middle
provo, these fish get a lot of pressure. I kind of tell
everyone that they have their PHD’s. So what I like to use
for say this green drake is I’ll start off with 5X tippet
and I’ll be using a tapered leader that’s 10-12 feet
long.
<(Mickey) How long is your tippet? (walter) tippet is going to be about 20-25 inches.>
(Walter) the biggest goal with dry fly fishing is
achieving a drag free drift. And there is a lot of
different steps you have to do to achieve that drag free
drift. Let’s start with an upstream presentation.>
(walter) now with this cast you want to go 10-2, get a
nice tight cast, you want to get that fly line to turn
over. And then do a few false casts and then when I
present the fly I’m gong to lay it down and then what I’m
going to do is strip the fly back to me at the speed of
the current.
(Walter) I want that dry fly to drift the same speed of
the current, so that fly to the fish looks like it has no
strings attached.
(Mickey Anderson) hey Walter I know the bounce rig is a
killer way to fish the provo but is it the only way you
nymph fish the provo? (walter) no, another great method is
called a tradition nymph rig. Another name for it is the
in-line rig. What we are doing here is putting our split
shot above our triple surgeons knot. We are using about a
8-9 foot leader as well and we are using a strike
indicator. Same thing, twice the depth of the water so we
do a triple surgeons knot we pinch some weights on above
that knot to keep them sliding down to the fly. And then
what I like use is 12/12 and 12. So there is 12 inches in
between the split shot and your point fly which is going
to be your bigger fly and then we are going to do another
12 inches to your dropper here.
(Walter) with this rig with the in-line, the bigger fly
is tied up top and the smaller fly is trailed down below.
(Walter) What I use with my clients a good analogy to get
them familiar with the set up of the cast is I mention the
Statue of Liberty, Lady Liberty holding a torch in her
hand. That’s your position for casting. So what we are
going to do is take the arm, we are going to bring it up
here, up high, roll it over the shoulder, line hand comes
under the finger, we are going to mend, keep our rod tip
high and we are going to watch our indicator start ticking
and that’s a good indication that we are getting the drift
that we need.
(hooking fish) there you go! Just had to put a little
more weight on there.
(Walter) now setting the hook with a nymph, you want to
set the hook downstream. These fish are facing upstream in
the current, waiting for small nymphs, worms to come down
the drift. So they are sitting there stationary. If you
pull straight up or upstream, a lot of time those flies
will pull out of their mouth. So it’s really important
when you do get that strike to get a quick, sweep
downstream for the hook set.
(Tag) Boy that is a lot of information to digest. If you
want to check it out or review it, you can always check
our outdoors page at KSLTV.com. Hey Mickey is over here, I
know he’s catching more fish. Lets turn it over to him now
for tonights Fish Tech fish report.
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