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My partner and I hiked in at about 8 all the way to the dam. Surprisingly, no ice to be found anywhere! Right away my partner hooked into one which sprung of his 24 CDC midge. After that promising start, it was really tough. The water was super clear, shallow and the sun was directly over head. It certainly made for some very skittish fish and a tough day of technical fishing. If you even came close to putting your fly line over these fish, forget it they were gone. Slowly but surely we started to peg down our presentation...and it wasn't a very fun one. From fly line loop to loop connection to my final fly, my entire leader was consistently around 14 feet long! I started fishing 6X and nothing for the first hour. I lengthened up my leader a bit and then switched to 7X. It was then that I was able to hook into about four fish sight fishing and a couple others blind casting into typically productive water. Of the handful of fish I hooked I only managed to land two of them both around 15 inches. Kinda a damned if you do damned if you don?t situation with the 7X. Oh well, better to have hooked then to have never hooked at all. As for fly patterns, I landed one on a size 14 tan scud and the other on a new pattern my partner has been working on called a laser larva in size 20 (great little pattern and very easy to tie). Two of the fish I lost straitened out my 24 cream colored CDC midge and I imagine a couple of other ones that broke my line probably took similar midge variations. we took a seine sample and found a lot of golden stones in the water. I really hadn't ever seen that many stones in Cheeseman but they comprised the bulk of our sample. We started back out at about 2 hit the family hole where the trail dumps in and we each picked up one fish (one of which I already mentioned). Finished fishing at 3:30 and then got the heck out of there.
For those of you thinking about heading up Cheeseman here's my two cents of advice and things to ponder. Be prepared for a very technical and delicate day of fishing. These are some of the hardest fish I have ever fished for. My partner today was a very skilled and experienced guide in cheeseman canyon. For him to only hook into half a dozen or so fish certainly says something. as for the trail, it kicked my butt. About four miles each way and it was very slick in spots especially coming down some of those switchbacks. If I were to do it again, I certainly would not take the hike all the way up but rather fish right where the gill trait begins to have river access points. There are a lot of good spots around there, and though people will tell you they are more skittish down there then by the dam, let me to tell you they are just as bad up by the dam. Final thought, if you want a serious challenge to test every bit of your ability then give it a go, if you just want to spank a ton of fish then go some where else.
For those of you thinking about heading up Cheeseman here's my two cents of advice and things to ponder. Be prepared for a very technical and delicate day of fishing. These are some of the hardest fish I have ever fished for. My partner today was a very skilled and experienced guide in cheeseman canyon. For him to only hook into half a dozen or so fish certainly says something. as for the trail, it kicked my butt. About four miles each way and it was very slick in spots especially coming down some of those switchbacks. If I were to do it again, I certainly would not take the hike all the way up but rather fish right where the gill trait begins to have river access points. There are a lot of good spots around there, and though people will tell you they are more skittish down there then by the dam, let me to tell you they are just as bad up by the dam. Final thought, if you want a serious challenge to test every bit of your ability then give it a go, if you just want to spank a ton of fish then go some where else.
