My son and I were there both days--we camped over Sat night. Saturday was great, and Sunday would have been even better except I was suffering with a migraine for most of the day, and my son was operating with too little sleep.
I certainly agree with wpk (and others) about the benefits of this event. I'm looking for new rods, wanting to go practice, quizzing my son about the names of the casts. It was fun and hugely worthwhile. Plus, I met or re-met a number of folks from the Flyfishing Forum Spey Clave! Had I been alone, I would have had greater ability to socialize, but my son was having a great time, for which I'm thankful.
Watching the experts was even more informative than at Spey Clave #1 for me. (I missed last year.) I saw myself as the expert a few times...when they were demonstrating things like the "bloody L" and other errors! I learned how to recognize and correct some of my errors. For example, using my lower hand to hold the sleeve on my upper arm will help me when I get really bad with the lower hand.
Much of our time was spent casting various lightweight speys. I was casting pretty well on Saturday, and thought, "man, these rods are nice." When I got out my own rod, I realized, "gee, I'm casting well today." I must have picked up a lot by osmosis. We went fishing for a brief bit Saturday evening, and I was really in a relaxed groove with my single speys and circle speys. Unfortunately, it didn't even last until Sunday.
But, we found some rods we really liked. I went into the weekend planning to test a couple Burkheimer rods, just to benchmark what the best are like. On Saturday, just as we were getting ready to watch longcast Steve Choate and Way Yin, Rob Allen showed up with the new Burkheimer 12.5 foot 7 wt. It was love at first cast, and we missed the whole presentation. My son was really casting that rod well. It was easy and forgiving, and yet powerful for its class. Sunday, it seemed he cast the T&T 13 ft 7 wt a bit better, but both of us were casting better on Saturday, so it's hard to tell. The Burkheimer was so enjoyable, I need to try the 13 foot 3 inch 7 wt. I don't know if any of these rods are in our future--none of my other equipment is that nice--but I'm thinking about it much more than before.
If any of you are looking for a lightweight spey, that brand new (we may have been the first non-Burkheimer employees to cast it) Burkie was special.
In another price class, we liked the CND Expert 6/7 (13 foot), and I'm guessing based on the feel of that and comments here that the CND Custom 7/8 might be another great choice for us, but I was too slow on Sunday to get a chance to cast it.
Mark Bachman, Patty Barnes, and the rest of the gang at the Fly Fishing Shop in Welches put together a superior event. Special thanks also to Bob L. and Laura C. for the hospitality trailer and assistance with the event.
