October 10, 2012: Middle Provo: You just can't make this up.

For starters, if you read the FYI at the end of "Fisherman beware: A lot of bells and whistles," you'd know that I planned on getting some revenge on an infamous run on the Middle Provo. I have lost a lot of trophy or near trophy size browns in this run--some due to equipment failure, personal failure, or just a poor hook setting (small nymphs). Well, this particular run didn't let me down. It's always the first run that I fish because of its proximity to where other fishermen will park and access the river. So this morning, I started out nymphing with my usual set up and managed to hook into a nice brown. Hard to gauge its size because it was not on long. In my double and triple checking knots last night, I am confident that I managed to weaken a section of my 5x tippet below my split-shot and the first nymph. Despicable.

The action was consistent all day and I managed to hook and land a good many browns before the trip really turned interesting. By the way, I tried shooting several videos while playing two, VERY large browns. I will post the videos and I apologize for their not being longer, but it is damn near impossible to do 3 things at once, especially when an 18 inch plus brown starts to go on a run--you'll hear my reel start to scream, I'll admit that I just dropped my net in the river, and the video will end abruptly. I am thinking about investing in one of those head video cams that people wear when they ski and snowboard--would be heaps easier than holding onto my iphone and juggling everything else while balancing in the river.  

Well anyway, I mentioned that my day gets unbelievable and there's an odd irony to what I am about to share. While on the same run as you'll see in both videos, I managed to hook into a brown that I am certain was over 21 inches. How do I know? I'll tell you shortly---yes, this is a dramedy. I am at the mercy of this brown and I am silently praying that I have hooked him good enough to land and that I won't do anything stupid to mess this up. I am doing good managing him and directing him away from the central current, which was mostly successful until he got the urge to jet across the middle to the opposite side of the river. On this run, the river bows away and cuts into the bank, creating some earthly shelter for browns to hide under. There's long grass on the ridge of the bank and the erosion from the flow of the river has exposed some of the grass roots, causing the long grass to partly fold over into the river. The large brown makes it to the undercut and proceeds to go a little upriver, causing the line and tippet to tangle some in the grass. At this point, I am thinking, here's another lunker lost to unfortunate circumstances. In hindsight, to have lost him then would have been much better than how the rest of the story plays out.

So the brown is in under some of the grass and my line is caught up some, but not too bad. I am somewhat expecting to lose him because of where he's at--again, in the undercut, amongst the grass, and on the opposite side of the river, which means I have to reel him across the main channel. Well, what I think initially is a small miracle ends up really complicating the situation. The brown manages to leave this spot and my line is somehow freed too. The Brown confidently starts downstream with no indication of changing his direction. Now, I have the weight of the fish and the current to contend with and my reels howling and I realize I need to move downstream NOW! I can see that the fish is not swimming naturally and I realize that while he was in the grass, or during his leaving that hiding place, he must have tangled himself in the section of tipper between the first and second nymph. Essentially, the brown has transformed himself from a fish into a hefty log and now I am stumbling as fast as I can to keep up with his drift into the next run down. I realize that the journey is not going to end here and the both of us head towards the next run down. At this point, the original location of where I hooked him is completely out of sight due to the river bend. Where we'd end up is completely out of sight due to the river BENDS.

We're heading towards a longer run, in which there's a deeper holding pool, where the fish takes a moment to recover. My SAGE VXP is still signaling that I have a huge brown on, but my arm is able to recover some. I am also able to reel in a little bit of the line that had been let out, which is another indication that he is hooked good and is wrapped some in my tippet.

I see that a man--who we'll call Bob (really looks like a Bob), is fly-fishing the tail end of the run where we are currently located. This is one of the longer runs on this particular stretch and as the fish resumes its downstream trek, I am able to get a closer view of Bob.. I see that Bob is an elderly man and that he is wearing chest waders and is looking the part. I believe that Bob saw me before I saw him, and I can tell that he has just observed my descent down the river, which was anything but graceful (I didn't fall in). I see that Bob also has a net and I yell out, "sir, could you net this guy for me?" Bob drops his fly-rod, grabs his net, and makes his way towards me. The brown is tired and netting the fish should be a shoe-in. I direct him to Bob, who is ready with his net. The brown is right next to Bob and he's got his chance to scoop him right up. Again, it is important to note that the fish is still unable to fully swim and so it is still drifting downward, though it's still thrashing mightily. Bob misses the fish and instead of letting me delay the fish's drift, he GRABS THE TIPPET! SNAP. FISH GONE.

I am... Numb...Delusional...Dumbstruck...Hopeless.

I am also out of breath, which I hadn't realized up until now. Bob is a very nice man and he feels horrible. He's apologetic and I try to put into words what had happened. Bob and I shoot the breeze, but I can't recall exactly what we talked about. I think I asked how he liked his Simm waders and how long had he owned them. I think he made a comment about my favorite river shoes, which are an old pair of Nikes. I think I told him that river shoes are a family tradition and that my brothers and I grew up on the East Fork of the Lewis River and are accustomed to navigating rivers in a controlled chaos fashion courtesy of our river shoes. Probably mentioned that we have a very low rate of tumbling into the river, which is remarkable considering that recreational river crossing goes hand in hand with fly-fishing. I know that I told Bob that I had caught the 18.5 incher (pics on blog) from the section he was fishing. He asked what I was using. I doubt I made any sense and I'm confident none of our conversation flowed. I was certainly disjointed.  

Before the day's end, I hooked and landed many more browns---mostly small to midsize ones and on occasion a really nice one. Since hooking into trophy browns, I have a tough time remembering how many total fish I caught, unless the day is particularly slow. Twice after my downriver expedition, I had two much larger browns take a nymph and on both occasions, it was much to do about nothing and both fish were off before I could get a good look at them.

As I started to head back to the car (around 5 pm), Bob had finally made his way up to me and commented that he saw me catch a good size brown. I mentioned that this was the same hole that I had hooked the Brown that broke free. I don't think he believed me, considering he had just witnessed firsthand the distance upriver I had been from where he had been earlier.

It's not likely that Bob will ever read this blog. If you do, Bob, don't feel bad and know that I made the same error within the last week. It was a hell of an experience and as cliché as this will sound, strangely, a part of me would not want the series of events to unfold in any other way. Though, a part of me would.