Fishing the Lower Provo when there is more moss than water

[BHuij]

I spent this morning on the lower Provo seeing if I could tempt some browns to bite.

Got a few bites drifting an olive woolly bugger under a bubble, but didn't land anything. Regardless, it felt nice outside, the air was clean, and it was a perfect way to spend a morning.

On the way back, I decided to post this question and see if I could get help with some of the issues I was running into today.

The water levels are fairly high, presumably because they are sending all the water from the reservoirs downstream for irrigation reasons. Even though the water was high though, there was SO much moss. The majority of the stretch I fished seemed to have more moss than water...

I gave up on my spinners after like 30 minutes, because I was just dragging salad around on every single cast. That's when I switched to the woolly bugger under a bubble. That fared a bit better, as I left it unweighted and it just kinda drifted just under the surface, above the moss. But I didn't think I could successfully fish any kind of microjig (i.e. a trout magnet) without just immediately burying it in the moss and completely shutting down any chance of a bite.

What do you guys do when there's that much moss on the river?
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[spencerD]

Fish with dry flies.
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[Cantstopfishing]

Was having this problem on the Weber and switched to floating Rapalas and had some good luck. I kept my rod up really high and just tried to keep it swimming above the moss.
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[albinotrout]

I probably would have used a nice dry fly like an Adams or royal wulff
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[BHuij]

Sounds like I'm due for a trip to Sportsman's Warehouse to pick up some dry flies.

I think I'll pick up a rapala or 2 while I'm there. Looking at a #4 Shad Rap in Gold and perhaps one other. But I didn't do extensive research on these. Anyone recommend me a specific rapala (or similar crankbait) for the Lower Provo?

Thanks,
Andrew
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[Jedidiah]

The clear winner for me in Rapalas is the rainbow pattern. Rainbow trout, SMB, LMB, brown trout, tiger trout, white bass, walleye, even perch have bitten on my rainbow CD-5. I'll put it on a duolock snap tied directly to my 30 lb braid (which happens to be moss colored) and toss it out and catch them without a leader fairly regularly. A fluoro leader does increase your chances of success but also increases your chances of losing the lure.

The gold HJ-6 I have doesn't do as good but it does catch browns on the LP. The silver HJ-8 has been awesome for tiger trout because of the ability to suspend in the water. Many times I've had a finicky fish follow all the way to shore and paused with the HJ's and had them sidle in for a quick strike-turn-bolt maneuver and been surprised when their food bites back.
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[BHuij]

Maybe it's just me, but a lot of the sizes that were above the first tier or two on basically every series of Rapala at the Sportsman's Warehouse just seemed way to big for the kind of fish I have historically caught in the Lower Provo.

I ended up picking up some elk hair caddis dry flies, a couple of adams as well, and three Rapalas. This is my first venture into the world of Rapala, so I got a smattering:

-Original floating #3 in Brown Trout
-Countdown #3 in Rainbow Trout
-X Rap #5 in Gold for larger browns and for possible use with LMB elsewhere

Those guys are pricey, so I hope I really love them... haha. Or maybe I should hope I don't, so I don't feel compelled to buy 10 more

Probably sometime next week will be my first chance to go hit the Lower Provo again, but I'm camping near Payson Lakes this weekend, so I might try the countdown there. Fingers crossed!
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[Jedidiah]

They're about 25% cheaper at Walmart, but I'm always careful to look at the nose and general appearance of the lure and make sure it's all symmetrical and doesn't have plastic molding errors up near the nose as that will cause significant problems with its action. The 3's are quite good for small streams, I use a ULS-4 in brown trout in smaller streams and it slays em. Caught a 18 inch rainbow on one on the Weber a few weeks ago. The 5 on the Provo above the dam is more successful for me than the ULS though....a little bit back I caught a brown just under the slot limit there that had a fish even bigger than a CD-5 already in its stomach.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm fooling myself as to how successful Rapalas are because of how fun they are for me. Seeing a fish rise up out of the deep and nail the lure or letting it balloon out across a riffle and having a big fish whack it and yank my arm forward are both quite a rush.
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[BHuij]

Well I will definitely give them a shot. I suppose I probably could have gone bigger, but my natural instincts tell me to buy smaller stuff. I'm not necessarily after trophy browns to the point that I would say no to a 10 incher for the frying pan , so I think the sizes I picked are probably best for my situation.
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[Cantstopfishing]

I haven't fished the Provo, but on the Weber I started out fishing size 5 and 7 rapalas, and recently switched to the original floating size 9's. I have caught more fish of all sizes on the size 9's than I ever did on the 5's or 7's, but I have also caught many more larger fish with the 9's. From what I can see the size doesn't scare off your average 10-12 inch trout, I have caught just as many of that size with the 9's as I did with the smaller ones.

I went fishing this morning for a few hours and caught three that were about 10-12 inches two that were about 14 inches and two 18 inchers. All with size 9's.
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[doggonefishin]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with fishing with Rapalas or spinners there and if you are an inexperienced fly angler, you will no doubt do much better with those on the Lower Provo than you would fly fishing. I flyfish a lot but still will bust out gear and fish streams with gear and spinners on occasion. Its a simple pleasure. [angelic]


However, if you want to catch fish on the fly on the LoPro, you might want to look into learning the "Provo river bounce rig" when the river is weedy, which is basically right now into December. This rig puts the weight in the weeds and the flies are drifted above the weight and out of the weeds. The flies thus foul up with those mossy weeds a great deal less than standard rigs and are thus more available to be inspected by the fish. If you have bassin experience, think of it as dropshot flyfishing.

Here are some links. (Google has a bunch of additional references if you need more)

http://www.vailvalleyanglers.com/blog/ot...bounce-rig

http://www.flyfisherman.com/featured/bounce-nymphing/

http://www.bigfishtackle.com/forum/Utah_...__P892368/


As for flies, I frequently use sow bugs, hares ear nymphs, certain emergers, egg/globug patterns in the fall and San Juan worms in the spring or after rain. The problem with the Provo is that those fish get so much pressure, they have seen it all and sometimes you have to match what they are eating closely. At least for me, those seem to work consistently.
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[BHuij]

Yeah, did a bunch of digging for info on fishing flies with spin gear and ran across mentions of the Provo River Bounce rig. Sounds like a perfect way to keep nymphs in the strike zone without turning them into a vegetarian offering.

Looking forward to testing out some of my new dries on Sunday morning, as well as the Rapalas and maybe messing around with a bugger or two. Might pick up a muddler as well.

If I have good luck with the Rapalas, I'll go pick up one or two #9s next. Thanks for the tip; I always figured even the #7 would be way too big, but if it doesn't scare the fish off, I'll give it a shot.
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[Jedidiah]

I just caught a 11" brown out of Tibble Fork on a CD-7 rainbow, first cast last night. It made me think of this post, I'd have taken a picture but it was too dark. Too late now, he's in my "holding tank" pending release into the Orem Municipal Underground Reservoir [] .

Don't tell anyone there's easy browns in Tibble, no one fishes raps in there and the browns are naive.
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[BHuij]

I was going to head out to the LoPro on Sunday morning, but it didn't happen. I'm itching to try out both my new Rapalas and some dry fly action, and I'll be sure to post a report when I finally get back out on the water.
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