Middle Provo River at Midway Utah

Fly Fishing the West
Vol. 12, Issue 1
Wed., September 28, 2009
Middle Provo River, Above Midway, Utah

Tyson, Alan, Ben and I left Provo about 5:30 pm and arrived at the Middle Provo River at about 6 pm. We came at this time (evening) as our previous trips indicated that activity on the water really started to pick up later in the evening. We arrived and parking in the Fisherman Access on the north side of the road (several miles passed a round-about near a new subdivision). We headed about ¼ mile upstream passing the beaver dam on the right. (We came here again a month later and there is now a second beaver dam a pool below the first dam.)

Fish were breaking the water surface and jumping everywhere. A hatch or something was gloing on as there were huge numbers of very tiny flies swarming together just above the surface of the water mainly near the edges of the stream. Ben and Alan tried a Griffith’s gnat (probably a size 14) on top. Tyson was using a streamer (a size 6 black ‘maribou’-type pattern he tied) and caught several fish. Ben caught about 10 brown, the largest being about 13”. Alan caught a few browns as well. I caught a ~14”-inch and a ~17-inch browns nymphing (Tyson Method) on a size 14 caddis emerging pupa nymph pattern. I caught 3 other smaller browns. Strikes seemed to pick up as it got darker. We left at about 8:15 pm, when it was getting very dark. (It had not occurred to us to bring flashlights although I cannot get too excited about fishing in the dark even with lights.

Other Miscellaneous Information/Observations:

1. We arrived and parking in the Fisherman Access with about 6 other cars there. However we only saw about one other fisherman on the stream near where we fished (which I believe is about the best spot, i.e., at the ‘bend in the river’.
2. The weather was nice and warm, sunny, but cooled off pretty quickly as the sun sank below the western mountains (about 6 pm).
3. This is a beautiful spot on the Middle Provo River, which has been under an ongoing renovation project (Provo River Restoration) for a number of years. The river is easy to walk to, not a lot of trees.

4. Non-resident Utah fishing license for 2009 is $12, $32, or $70 for a 1-day, 7-day or 1-year license, respectively. The annual license is good for the 365 days subsequent to the day it is purchased.