The Provo

Thursday evening on the Provo River; a river cited as one of the top fishing rivers in America.
Bernie fished; I wandered about taking in the late summer photo ops.
Seems like every year at this time I start seeing caterpillars wearing my beloved OSU colors.

Bernie had chest high waders on and thought nothing of blazing a trail through marshlands.
I followed for awhile...stepping into marsh up to my calf, then decided to return to the well trod pathways.

It is still pretty warm out; I wore a long sleeved shirt simply to protect myself from the elements.

Translucent red berries glowed along the trail.

Is this bittersweet? Our bittersweet in the garden has orange berries; is this another variety of the plant or something different all together?

Once or twice I did manage to slog through some water.
It was surprisingly warm...

HUGE blue dragonflies were monitoring my every step. They refused to land; I was left with the option of photographing the more photographically compliant damselflies instead.

I heard a rustle next to the trail and saw a long gopher snake trying to blend in with his environment. 
It is with great pride that I share that my yelp was tiny and my camera was at the ready.
Five years ago I would have screamed my head off and ran back to the car, locking the door and honking the horn for Bernie to come drive me away.
Now I smile and can't wait to show Bernie the picture.

It is still a lot more fun to sight a butterfly...

Never get tired of photographing butterflies...

Another Caterpillar was humping along the path beneath the butterfly.

A beaver dam.
Yes...this is my kind of place, where the OSU mascot builds dams and the caterpillars go about in orange and black.
No beavers to be seen this afternoon though.
I note that there is to be an almost a full moon that night; such nights are when beavers go about with their families doing whatever needs to be done.
I considered asking Bernie if he wanted to stay until dark.
He would of course.
The hatching mayflies filling the air made me decide not to propose the adventure this time.

Standing near the dam and humming the Oregon State University fight song didn't stir the beavers enough to make an appearance for me.
That was slightly disappointing.

Several other fishermen were on the river too.

Occasionally they glanced my way as I focused on what was to be seen on land.

It wasn't until later that I saw one of the cars in the parking area with a bumper sticker promoting Special Needs fishing.
I don't know what special needs the guys had; perhaps limited vision, but it was really cool to see the assistance being offered and the wide grins on all their faces as they made their way back to shore.

Bernie fishing around the bend.
He said he got a few hits.
The air was so full of insects it is hard to imagine that the fish had any interest in artificial flies at all.

Back to butterflies...

Don't you love that scalloped design on the lower wing edge?

In case you are wondering how I get so close to the butterfly and also get a nice blurry background: I was shooting with my EFS 55-250mm lens. It allows me to shoot close up while standing a couple of yards away. The area of focus is small so the rest of the shot always is out of focus.

 

 

I do love wild asters.
So do butterflies apparently.

Checking back in with Bernie.
Notice the color change on the hillside up and behind him?

I just now realized that *someday* I want to get a waterproof camera and chest waders so I can go out on the river with him.
Of course I would probably just scare all the fish away but I think it would be fun.

 

 

A cedar wax wing, with the pretty yellow tipped tail feathers.
The dots in the air next to the bird: Mayflies. 
The flies are about an inch long and a quart of an inch wide and are frankly grossing me out.

I headed back to the car.  The parking area was nearly full, and clusters of fishermen and one fisher woman were talking shop.
It felt good to know what a PMD was and what a few other fly fishermen short hand names meant.

One gentleman struck up a conversation with me as I was photographing the bird: He and his wife had just moved to Midway two weeks ago from Ventura.
He was retired and had decided that being near the Provo for fishing and Sundance for skiing would be great.
We swapped observations about SoCal madness, SLC lifestyle, and generally congratulated ourselves for moving to the area when we had a chance.
We are running into more and more people who have likewise made the move for the same reasons.

After awhile I decided to try to round up Bernie.
A bird house mounted on a tree caught my eye.
The roof had a letter from a Momma to her Baby Boy.
Baby Boy used to love to fish here.
She still misses her son...
Wished they had had the chance for him to take her fishing like he always wanted to.
It was pretty sad.

So that was pretty much it for September 15, 2011 on the Provo River.
On the way home we noted that fall was gearing up to come down from the mountain.
"Spring comes up from the valley; Fall comes down from the mountains".
Yes it does.
And it looks like it will this year too.