Florida is two days away! Provo River Fishing Report.

Hooked from a canoe 300 yards from Shore and fought from shore.  Hour and fifteen minute fight!

Hello people who love to fish!  Over 300 people read my last blog, which I always think is weird.  I'm not a blogger, just a fisherman who writes about my adventures.  In 72 hours I will be in Naples, Florida going to bed to awake to a 3 hour ride to the Florida Keys.  Tom and Eileen, his insanely funny wife will welcome me to their humble home in Naples, Florida for the 3rd time in 2 years.  I fell in love with Florida in February of 2010. If you love fishing and have never been to Florida then cash in all of your 1980 Bill Laimbeer  rookie cards to get there!  Briefly the goal is to get a Tarpon, Redfish, and an 8 pound Lake Okeechobee bass.  Last year I caught an 8 foot 200 plus nurse shark at Clam Pass in Naples Florida., so sharks aren't a must have.  I'll be taking HD footage of the 12 day adventure as well as lots of pictures.  We will post our trip on our youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/WeAreSimplyFishing?feature=guide

Provo River Report 2/20/12

 Fly fished the Provo River on Saturday the 18th.  The conditions were extremely warm and delightful.  Arrived at 12:30 to a slight breeze and 45 degree temps.  I met Zach my partner with Simply Fishing as well as my Dad.  We fished at Vivian Park because of the easy access for my Dad.  We started fishing at 12:50 after getting set up.  I started with a bounce nymph rig with the top fly being a size 18 copper john and a trailer size 20 sow bug.  I immediately hooked up on 3 fish below the bridge at Vivian to quickly lose them.  It went dead for the next two hours.  We were fishing holes that had been fished by 2 or 3 fisherman that day.  It was terrible to be honest, caught one and hooked 7 that I didn't get to the net.  I was using a size 20 sow and the hook was not as exposed as I like, therefore contributing to the low hookup to land ratio. Zach and my Dad left after an hour, so I fished for another hour near Vivian and then headed down the canyon.  I stopped at Murdock diversion dam 1 mile up Provo Canyon.  The dam was drained and was running at about 85 cfs below the dam.  I fished the spillway and dominated.  I landed 5 fish in a half an hour window and hooked up on 10 total.  I caught 2 whitefish, so ugly and smelly.  All the fish came on the sow bug.  None of the fish all day touched the copper john.  The fish were modest with the biggest coming in at 16 inches.  Well our new website launches March 15th so check it out at www.simplyfishingutah.com

Sincerley, Simply Fishing

Park City fly fishing

Catching rainbows through the ice with wooly buggers.

Caught this 15 inch rainbow on a purple wooly bugger.  I did not tip it with bait, pretty exciting!

Simply an Insane Day on the Ice 

Today I decided to work a half day, actually an hour, so 1/12 of a day.  I have been ice fishing only for a couple hours this year.  I needed to get out and bring a fish through a 10 inch ice hole.  I read a report last night that Deer Creek was hot near the mouth of the Provo River (Charleston), and I wanted to capitalize on the fishing before the ice melted.  We arrived around 1:00 to bright sunny skies.  The temperature was around 45 degrees!  We started to walk out on the ice to our spot.  The ice was shady and kind of risky.  It snowed last night so all the holes from yesterday were walking ice traps.  It was so warm that the holes never froze and were land mines that put my brother through the ice (one leg).  We had a short hike, only 100 yards. Our rods were already rigged from last week, so we tipped our jigs with meal worms.   

2 inch tube jig with meal worm.  Notice the pressure ridge in the background, very dangerous.  The people  who know me know that I'm a gambler if there is a reward to be had i'll take the chance.

Rhys Cooper with a 16 inch rainbow trout.

There were holes already drilled from earlier that day,so we dropped our jigs down about 15 feet in 18 feet of water.  The action was insane the first 15 minutes, 5 fish.  After 45 minutes and 12 fish, our friends showed up to join in the insanity.

We explained to them how hot the fishing was, and then it shut off.  It's always great fishing before someone arrives, building the confidence of the latecomer,  for it to turn completely cold.  The cold streak was too long (20) minutes, until Devin hooked his first fish.  I have never seen a bass setting hook set like his!  Insane, I was laughing so hard.  At one point he tried setting a hook so hard he completely brought his jig out of the water, and almost hooked his head.  The group of us continued to catch fish after fish, the boredom set in for me.  I get bored if the fishing is easy, so I decided to not tip my bait and put on a purple beadhead wooly bugger.  The idea of fly fishing below the ice with out the help of bait was exciting.  It wasn't long after I put it on, that I had a fish on and to might delight it had taken the wooly bugger.

I ended up catching 2 more on the wooly bugger.  I really wanted to put on a chironomid fly but was too lazy.  We fished until 5 and our  total between 4 people was around 40 fish.  The biggest was around 17 inches.  With the majority of them in the 12-14 inch class.  Great day and very warm, my kind of ice fishing.
Look for my Florida report soon.  Headed out to fish for Tarpon, Shark, Snook, Redfish, and 25 other species.  The trip will be a 12 day one, so lots of pics and video footage to come. Our new website simplyfishingutah.com will launch March 15th!

Sincerley, Simply "slippy sloppy dippity do" fishing.Park City fly fishing

Simply Fishing is now officially a new business!

With Pinback and massive amounts Rockstar fueling this post, I'm feeling pretty confident.  Yesterday Simply Fishing became an official business.  We decided to have a celebration party at Tom Bodette's favorite watering hole, The Painted Rusty Mailbox.  We aren't too serious about life and know that these blogs are read by maybe 5 people, so I will write some pretty off the wall things.  I really don't want to write about fishing this post, because frankly, reading or watching fishing is pretty boring, even to me.  In fact I really don't want to write anymore.  Just got bored writing this.  Here is a picture from my friend Brandon who just got back from New Orleans.

Park City fly fishing Sincerley,
A small business owner
www.simplyfishingutah.com

LLC will be official this week as well as other boring stuff

I started this blog to only help with my SEO for simplyfishingutah.com, but I found out that almost 70 people read it.  Which was kind of weird since I wasn't writing this for really anyone to read.  I have always thought blogs were kind of dumb and never really knew what they were all about, until recently.  N.W.A. just come on my spotify player "straight out of Compton".  Side note, the greatest fisherman to live didn't come straight out of Compton, He came out of Judea.  This blog won't be strictly about fishing.  Fishing just might be the most boring thing to read about for the average reader.

So this is what has transpired since the first blog on Monday or Tuesday, can't remember the days blurred this week.  I worked on my website which looks OK.  I'm not done nor satisfied with where it's at.  Google gave me some good pointers when I spoke to them about advertising.  Advertisements will be coming out in the next week to promote the guiding aspect of Simply Fishing.  They gave me a $100 credit.  Which will probably last a month.  It's almost $2.50 a click after that!  We will see what happens with the response.  I'm in the process of working with KSL, Living Social, City Deals, Spreebird, Salt Lake Tribune, etc.  We hope to have 20 bookings through this ad campaign.

The online shop is now up!  We don't have any flies on there yet.  I have two or three local fly tiers that will put their flies on there.  We are going to only carry locally hand tied flies.  They will run around $1.69 to $1.99.  I'm excited about us getting an account with Reddington and Sage to provide our rods, reels, and waders for a ridiculous discount.  I guess working at Sportsman's Warehouse for $8.50 an hour for 3 years paid off.  I have a lot of connections from that job that will give me an advantage.

I met with my C.P.A. on Saturday to figure out the LLC filing and a bunch of boring things.  This week we will make it official and have a business license and be running.  I just registered the domain simplyfishingutah.com to help with SEO as well.  You can type in simplifishing.com or simplyfishingutah.com.  The simpli spelled with an "I" was a big mistake for the original website.  Should have just taken simplyfishing.net when I registered the domain.

We will be starting a fishing forum this week as well.  This will be a place for fisherman to share their fishing experiences, fishing reports, tips, etc.  We will link the website to it as well as the website to the forum.  I'm bored of writing so keep it simply simple.

Simply about time

I got this very sane idea in November of 2011 that I should get out of advertising and start a fishing shop and guiding service for the Provo river.  I quit my job as an advertising sales exec at a magazine.  I started brainstorming on Christmas eve until 6 in the morning.  Writing every idea that flowed through my head regarding what shop I wanted to run.  The same process went on for two more nights, going to bed no earlier than 5 am.  I had a game plan and now I needed to get some feedback.  I went to former co-workers from my days at Sportsman's Warehouse to get their feedback.  They gave me their blessing just as I had predicted.  I note, I was willing to not go through with the shop if my former manager Mike Fisher said it was a bad idea.  He was pretty positive about my idea. So here we are exactly one month later and the ball is in motion.  I have brought on my good friend Zach Emig and fishing partner as a co owner.  We will be opening the guiding part of the business this spring ahead of the shop which should open by late this year. The last 24 hours have been crazy, I accidently built a web page (www.simplyfishingutah.com) , 17 hours later!  Started my first blog, started a facebook page, started the application process for a business license and started studying SEO.  It's 2:09 am and I'm sure I'll be up 3 more hours, writing my business plan.  Here is my logo courteous of Microsoft paint, took 1 minute to make.  Also just set up my online fly shop http://simplyfishing.miiduu.com/
The ones who chase their dreams are those who are not afraid to fail.

Simply Fishing Utah