Cheesman Canyon and Spey Casting

Cheesman Canyon (1.22.11 240 cfs)

It has been awhile since I have tread along the Gill trail. Especially following the closure of the lower parking lot. A buddy and I found a half full parking lot, and made it into the canyon at about 11:15 a.m.
The lower canyon was fairly full. So we pushed up and found the usual spooky fish, and to my surprise the "Meat Hole" was empty of both fish and fisherman. We hiked up another mile and a half and really struggled to find fish, and had no hooked fish. As the light started to get low we worked down the canyon and targeted areas we had seen fish on the way up. With the luck of a bag of goldfish, we got our first hook ups on on a San Juan worm and a Pat's Rubber-legs respectively. We worked farther down the Canyon and hooked into a diesel fish on a 24 BH brassie. To this point none of the fish made it to the net. Then the next run we fished every cast seemed to produce a fish...all on the 26 Top Secret midge, and that luck and fly produced all the way down the next couple runs until the sun went down.

Does this mean a skunk can be avoided by a bag of Parmesan Goldfish?

Pat and Zach throwing the 15 footer (mid sweep)

On Tuesday we made a trip down to the Pueblo Tailwater. Too many 10 inch fish were caught on small dries (24-26) and assortment of red midges, but the highlight of the day was when one of the guys on the trip pulled out his 15' 10 wt Spey Rod and taught the other two of us three basic Spey casts: the Double Spey, the Snap T, and the Single Spey. It's incredible how much line those sticks can throw, and spey casting definitely can become hypnotic. I'm still trying to figure out all the terminology, my buddy kept yelling at me about the D loop and my anchor, took me a day to figure out what he was talking about.