Cheesman Canyon River Report – Ron Pecore

Cheesman Canyon
      My good friend Mark and I hiked and fished the entire Cheesman Canyon yesterday.  The water was still high flowing about 380 CFS which still made it difficult to cross in some areas. We found a lot of fish and had a 20 fish day with a most of them around 16 inches and one landed over 20. On the upper canyon we only encounter two other anglers and ran into a few more as we moved on down toward the bottom.
     We were using nymph rigs set up with a tan worm on top followed by a pmd emerger and dropping a chocolate thunder or black beauty on the bottom.
Mark caught mostly browns which gobbled up his worm while I landed several bows on the black beauty midge.
    Every where we fished we had action and found trout where they should be.
We avoided all the slow sections and focused on riffled water. The day started with a midge hatch and then switched to pmd’s with a mix of blue wing olives and a occasional yellow sally stone. I saw no risers so we nymph fished all day.
    The best fishing was high in the canyon. On the fist hole we started in we landed 7 and missed a few more. So if you go hike up as far as you can and you will find trout that are not to picky. Bring your dry fly rod as well and keep your eye open for risers. Early on in the morning I did a stomach pump and found all the food being very small 22’s or 24’s.
    We are now getting late into the summer and I’m now using more 4x on top and dropping to 5x on the bottom with a bit more distance between flies.
Also I’m using less weight and my indicator is further away.
    Take a hike and fish the Canyon. It’s worth it..Send us your success pics
  Tight Lines
Senior guide
Ron Pecore