05-22-2019, 04:40 AM
TL;DR: Spinners are not working on the Lower Provo right now with water so high and fast. I tried jigging and had some success despite really difficult water conditions.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I fished the lower Provo with a variety of spinners. With all the rain, the river is quite a bit higher and faster than usual, even for spring runoff conditions. I caught one small brown on a woolley bugger in a pond near the mouth of the canyon, and that was it. Nary a bite anywhere on the main river no matter what we tried. A bit of a frustrating trip.
I theorized that the colder water and high, stained, fast flows were making the fish much less likely to chase after a spinner, even if they could see it. We tried a lot of sizes and colors, trying to find one that would draw a strike, but just weren't having any luck.
After a lot of reading, I decided to try something I've never really done, which is jig fishing for trout. In the kind of water conditions I think I can expect on the lower Provo for the next month at least, spinner fishing is unlikely to be very productive. Jig fishing has a few advantages, particularly in fast, high, stained water:
1. Jigs are cheap. I can cast them into risky situations to place them in heavy cover or other likely trout hideouts because if I snag and lose it, I'm out a few cents instead of $4 for a new spinner or more for a Rapala.
2. Jigs seem to play more into the "food" instinct than just the "aggression" instinct of the trout. Tube jigs look like bugs or invertebrates that the trout are likely feeding on. Aggression seems to be relatively low this time of year, and when water is this fast. Trout seem to prefer holding behind cover and letting things come to them, and jigs fit this bill quite well.
3. Jigs can be much more effectively fished downstream. It's not terribly difficult to drift a jig down into an eddy or pool, but I can also use quartering casts, or a slow retrieve with a lot of sinking and hopping action coming upstream. Spinners tend to skip across the surface when retrieved against the current, especially when it's this fast.
The theory seemed good, so I have had a couple of outings to really see if I can make these jigs work for me. The Lower Provo has traditionally been a harsh mistress, I get skunked more often than not regardless of water conditions, and even after having fished it 30+ times I still feel like I haven't found anything that consistently produces bites.
The first trip was a few days ago. I went down shortly after a shower, hoping to interest trout that were probably feeding on bugs and worms washed into the water by the rain. I was using my 5'6" UL rod and 4lb mono. I got no attention with a 1/16 oz black marabou jig, or a pearl curly tail with black flecks, so I tried brown and black tube jigs with a 1/32 oz leadhead inside. I'd cast quartering upstream, then try to swing them into a feeding lane at the head of a pool or eddy downstream, then use a slow and bouncing retrieve to keep the jig in front of any fish as long as possible. I got some hits but didn't manage to hook anything. The trout seemed to like the black tube jig best. I had to stop fishing because I took the "jigs are cheap" thing to heart a little too much and snagged up so many times that I actually ran out of line on my reel from cutting it and retying.
I went back today with my 6'6" UL rod and 4lb mono, determined to be a little less reckless casting into places where I would obviously lose a jig. It was raining and the water level was nearly as swift and high as I've ever seen it. This time the brown tube jig seemed to be the ticket, although the black marabou also got some nibbles. After a lot of bites I hooked a really pretty brown with great markings and a golden belly, maybe the best looking brown I've ever caught. He took the brown tube as I was slowly retrieving it upstream, with some subtle jigging along the edge of an eddy. After a quick picture he went back into the drink.
Out of curiosity, I tried tying on a gold 1/4 oz vibrax spinner and casting at some fish I saw rising near some submerged downed trees, and got zero interest. I couldn't cast a 1/32 oz jig far enough to reach the area unfortunately.
All in all, despite only landing a single fish, I think I am convinced of the effectiveness of jigging for trout, particularly when conditions make spinner fishing a bad option. I still have a lot to learn about this river, how to read the water and locate places with a high likelihood of holding a trout, etc. But it feels good to have confidence in another option when standard hardware isn't getting the job done.
If anyone has any tips or rigs to recommend for jig fising on the Lower Provo, I'd love to hear.
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A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I fished the lower Provo with a variety of spinners. With all the rain, the river is quite a bit higher and faster than usual, even for spring runoff conditions. I caught one small brown on a woolley bugger in a pond near the mouth of the canyon, and that was it. Nary a bite anywhere on the main river no matter what we tried. A bit of a frustrating trip.
I theorized that the colder water and high, stained, fast flows were making the fish much less likely to chase after a spinner, even if they could see it. We tried a lot of sizes and colors, trying to find one that would draw a strike, but just weren't having any luck.
After a lot of reading, I decided to try something I've never really done, which is jig fishing for trout. In the kind of water conditions I think I can expect on the lower Provo for the next month at least, spinner fishing is unlikely to be very productive. Jig fishing has a few advantages, particularly in fast, high, stained water:
1. Jigs are cheap. I can cast them into risky situations to place them in heavy cover or other likely trout hideouts because if I snag and lose it, I'm out a few cents instead of $4 for a new spinner or more for a Rapala.
2. Jigs seem to play more into the "food" instinct than just the "aggression" instinct of the trout. Tube jigs look like bugs or invertebrates that the trout are likely feeding on. Aggression seems to be relatively low this time of year, and when water is this fast. Trout seem to prefer holding behind cover and letting things come to them, and jigs fit this bill quite well.
3. Jigs can be much more effectively fished downstream. It's not terribly difficult to drift a jig down into an eddy or pool, but I can also use quartering casts, or a slow retrieve with a lot of sinking and hopping action coming upstream. Spinners tend to skip across the surface when retrieved against the current, especially when it's this fast.
The theory seemed good, so I have had a couple of outings to really see if I can make these jigs work for me. The Lower Provo has traditionally been a harsh mistress, I get skunked more often than not regardless of water conditions, and even after having fished it 30+ times I still feel like I haven't found anything that consistently produces bites.
The first trip was a few days ago. I went down shortly after a shower, hoping to interest trout that were probably feeding on bugs and worms washed into the water by the rain. I was using my 5'6" UL rod and 4lb mono. I got no attention with a 1/16 oz black marabou jig, or a pearl curly tail with black flecks, so I tried brown and black tube jigs with a 1/32 oz leadhead inside. I'd cast quartering upstream, then try to swing them into a feeding lane at the head of a pool or eddy downstream, then use a slow and bouncing retrieve to keep the jig in front of any fish as long as possible. I got some hits but didn't manage to hook anything. The trout seemed to like the black tube jig best. I had to stop fishing because I took the "jigs are cheap" thing to heart a little too much and snagged up so many times that I actually ran out of line on my reel from cutting it and retying.
I went back today with my 6'6" UL rod and 4lb mono, determined to be a little less reckless casting into places where I would obviously lose a jig. It was raining and the water level was nearly as swift and high as I've ever seen it. This time the brown tube jig seemed to be the ticket, although the black marabou also got some nibbles. After a lot of bites I hooked a really pretty brown with great markings and a golden belly, maybe the best looking brown I've ever caught. He took the brown tube as I was slowly retrieving it upstream, with some subtle jigging along the edge of an eddy. After a quick picture he went back into the drink.
Out of curiosity, I tried tying on a gold 1/4 oz vibrax spinner and casting at some fish I saw rising near some submerged downed trees, and got zero interest. I couldn't cast a 1/32 oz jig far enough to reach the area unfortunately.
All in all, despite only landing a single fish, I think I am convinced of the effectiveness of jigging for trout, particularly when conditions make spinner fishing a bad option. I still have a lot to learn about this river, how to read the water and locate places with a high likelihood of holding a trout, etc. But it feels good to have confidence in another option when standard hardware isn't getting the job done.
If anyone has any tips or rigs to recommend for jig fising on the Lower Provo, I'd love to hear.
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