The Provo wins....

Joe and I went to the Provo yesterday with hopes of top water action on a hopper-dropper combo. It was a sunny, but cool day and nothing seemed to really be coming up..... We threw hoppers for an hour or so without much luck. One small brown chased my hopper down stream, but that was our only look. Shortly after, I found a back eddi that looked promising. I casted downstream into the eddi and let the hopper swirl and float back along the bank towards me. The hopper suddenly got sucked down by some unseen opponent........The trout had taken the dropper, in this case, a Frito's sow bug. I set the hook and the fish fought a good battle for his size. (mostly due to the foul hook in the right pectoral fin.) We pumped the fish and he gave up three adult caddis and a couple small sow bugs. We kept fishing and shortly after another fish rose to the hopper.......... swing and a miss for me. I excitedly set WAY too quickly. Joe crossed the river and fished a promising undercut bank. Nothing came of it and he moved up into a little beaver pond side channel. He hooked up immediately on a beadhead brassie dropper below his hopper. It was a nice, fat brown probably 14-15 inches. I also crossed the river and we moved up the beaver pond side channel and didn't have much luck. Upon returning to the main river there were some fish rising to yellow/tan caddis flies. We changed flies and I quickly picked up a 10 incher off the top. After a half hour without a take, we decided to nymph for a while. I snagged up on the bottom near shore on my first cast. When I tried to retrieve it, the rig came loose right exactly at the moment I was trying to pull it free with my pole hand while at the same time sliding my hand down the rig to pull. The result? I had a tungstud nymph embedded in my pinkie finger all the way to the shank..... It was nauseating to pull the barb through my finger. Oh well. Joe hooked up on a nice one shortly after and lost him in the same minute. He's a nymphing master and soon hooked up on another big fish. He fought him for a few minutes while he slowly moved downstream. The fish was strong and on the first glimpse, we thought the fish to be a monster brownie. After a couple more minutes of fighting, we saw that the fish was a oversized white fish. This fish was also foul hooked had put up a great, sustained fight. After landing the fish we decided to call it a day. The Provo won......again. Joe and Phil lose their second-in-a-row battle with the middle. Until next time........... That big brownie still sits calmly on the bottom laughing as flies drift slowly past...........