The Provo had become nothing less than a spiritual home for me: I could be assured of isolating myself in the moment anytime I stepped into its waters.

They were not only healing, they were renewing.

I had probably fished it 30 times over the years and it had become my favorite fly stream within an hour of my Avenues home. There had been indelible moments on the Provo, only some of them related to fishing.

A few years ago I turned a corner in the stream and heard a whoosh and flutter of large wings; I had disturbed a great blue heron feeding in the middle of the stream. Stunned and aghast, I stood silently for a minute or so, hoping it would return, but it did not and I relished the unexpected sighting.

A couple of weeks ago I figured the runoff would be over and that it would be the perfect time to visit the upper Provo. As I pulled up to the Woodland Bridge, I saw clouds of caddis swarming about the stream and fish rising with abandon. Most of them were the size of a medium-size moth.

When I stood in the middle of the river they landed on my arms, glasses, fly rod and intermittently obscured my vision. They were that thick.

It is hard to fish in a caddis storm because the fish have such a glut of natural insects that artificials tend to be ignored. So I just stood there in the middle of the stream watching and not fishing. It was a marvel of natural congruence.

There were aggressive slashing rises for mature caddis near the surface, rolling slurps of trout ingesting caddis emerging from the surface of the water, and undoubtedly lunkers loafing alongside the feeding lanes below the active fish waiting for a drowned caddis to float their way.

Scoping out a potential fishing spot is something one does with regularity, but standing in the middle of a stream watching fish and not casting is unusual. This seemed like a spiritual necessity.

Three days later I went back to the Provo with a friend; I wanted to share the stream with him.

As we pulled up to the bridge I realized that something had radically changed. In the three days since I had stood in the middle of the river someone had built a diversion dam of three trunks, boulder and Visquine three-quarters of the way across the streambed and significant flow was now directed to the right. I was incredulous.

From the high-water mark of a few days ago the water level had dropped nearly two feet and most of the fish had disappeared in search of deeper, cooler water. Sections of the stream I had been able to wade were now an easy traverse.

This was the paradigmatic Western dilemma: farmers versus fishermen, water rights versus recreation and chutzpah versus reticence. Something inside of me died and gave rise to anger and frustration. I had suddenly been thrust into a very personal cause celebre.

The next day I contacted both the state Wildlife Resoures and Water Rights divisions, and after two weeks of study was told that the diversion was legal: Someone had legitimate water rights.

Whoever it was was required to let only 10 cubic feet per second down the main channel, a mere dribble, hardly enough to keep the upper Provo alive, in reality or in my soul.

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* LOUIS BORGENICHT is a pediatrician, writer and sometime fly fisherman.