My dad always talked about the pre-runoff fishing being “incredible,” particularly out on the creek that flowed through the ghost town about 45 minutes from home. He had endless stories of epic days where he caught big browns and rainbows on dry flies. The way my dad told it, the fish basically threw themselves in his net.
I didn’t have any reason to doubt my dad, but as I grew up and started fly fishing myself, I never encountered that legendary pre-runoff fishing I’d heard so much about. Part of that was due to timing—between work and school, it was hard to hit the stream at the right window before it was too muddy to fish.
The other problem is that I had no idea how to take advantage of spring fly fishing. I’m sure my dad tried to teach me, but I was an awful student, and insisted on doing things my way. That meant I’d often watch my dad put fish after fish in the net, while I grew increasingly frustrated at my lack of success.
It got to the point that I gave up on fly fishing during spring. I was convinced there was some conspiracy at play, that all these fly anglers were delusional. After all, if 14-year-old Spencer couldn’t catch fish on a fly rod during spring, then it was impossible. Right?
I rebelled and started throwing bait and scented jigs during spring. I didn’t join my dad on the river, and instead went with friends to the lake. We caught plenty of fish right at ice-off, and the fishing stayed good even when the rivers were too high and muddy to fish. It wasn’t on a fly rod, but this spring fishing felt like the pinnacle of outdoor existence. For most of high school, I looked forward to April and May on the lake more than I anticipated July in the high country.
My disdain for spring fly fishing colored my entire perception of the fly rod, to the point that I almost quit fly fishing for a few years. I’d bust the fly rod out during Boy Scout trips to the Uinta Mountains in Utah, but I increasingly relied on my jigs and spinners to put fish in the net.
I’ve never been able to pinpoint when or why, exactly, I gave fly fishing another shot. I just know that, after graduating high school, I had a lot of time on my hands, and filling it with fly fishing seemed to make sense.
The Big Change
After high school, I lasted a half-semester at college before dropping out. I ended up in my grandma’s basement, which was about 30 minutes from the Lower Provo River in Utah. I kept enough of a job to put gas in my 1997 Chevy, and spent all my time on the river.
The first spring that I lived at grandma’s house, I was out on the water in early April. There were blue-winged olives coming off, but I didn’t know what the bugs were called. I just knew it was one of the few times I’d see other anglers fishing dry flies on the Lower Provo (it has a well-earned reputation as a fishery meant for nymphing). I’d throw dry flies, too, but I didn’t know what I was doing.
I felt just like a kid again, only this time, dad wasn’t around for me to pepper with questions. I probably would have listened to him, too. So, I spent long days getting skunked, then I’d head home and consume all the educational fly fishing content I could get my hands on. I did everything, short of hiring a guide, to crack the code.
There wasn’t ever a lightbulb moment. There wasn’t a seismic “click” when the arcane art of fly fishing during spring finally made sense. Instead, I went from catching no fish, to putting a few in the net most days. I caught fish on dry flies during spring, and for the first time, I understood why my dad loved it so much.
You know spring fishing, especially with dry flies, is a short window. The wind can kick up and blow a hatch off the water, or it can warm up too much and the river can turn to mud. Sometimes, all the ingredients are there for a great hatch—an overcast sky, drizzly weather, no wind—and the bugs just don’t show up. It’s fleeting, addicting in the way only unpredictable events can be. There’s a sense that, with every fish you put in the net, you’re playing with house money. At any moment the spell could end, the fish could quit rising, and you’d be just another guy standing in a river, waving a stick.
These days, spring fly fishing is enough of an event around my house that my wife is giving birth to our first child in June—right in the heart of runoff, when the rivers are just too high and muddy to fish well, and the spell of spring fly fishing has long since broken.