As we mentioned on Friday, it’s trout time at Alaska West. Late July trout fishing rocks!
If you’re headed to Alaska West to chase our legendary leopard rainbows, here are 5 flies that we think you should bring along. Idylwilde makes some pretty awesome trout flies – these are all available from your local Idylwilde dealer.
- Hickman’s Mr. Hankey. If you’ve read our blog much, you know that Jeff Hickman has guided at Alaska West for years. He’s a really innovative tier and developed this pattern based on his experiences on the Kanektok and Arolik Rivers. Hit the link for some more background and design info. Mousing is fun.
- Hickman’s Egg Stealing Super Sculpin. Sculpins produce all season long. This is a big fly for big fish.
- Silvey’s Tandem Tube – Black Egg Sucker. Black leeches work anywhere trout swim. The tandem tube has super movement in the water.
- Hickman’s Bite Sized Flesh. Yep, three Hickman flies in this list! We like the Bite Sized Flesh because you can fish it in all types of water – skinny, deep, side channels, main river, spawning beds and more.
- Fox’s Sleech – Fresh Flesh. On the other hand, this thing is massive! If you’re fishing the lower Kanektok in pursuit of the big boys, you’re going to want to drag a big flesh fly around snags and dropoffs.
You should bring some beads along too, but including beads in a list of favorite flies just didn’t feel right…
Do you guys have any suggestions for getting the correct foam shape for Mr. Hankey? I’ve been cutting by hand, but am curious if Hickman has any tricks on a template to use for the foam shape.
For the foam template think tear shape with a long thin neck, I trim the “ears” after the fly is finished. Trial and error till you find the right template for the size and shape of your version. The most important trait is that the mid section is relatively thin so that when I tie it down to the shank over the crosscut rabbit, it doesn’t fold over the sides of the fly. I like the foam to stay as flat as possible on the back of the fly. To help this, I tie two thin strips of foam along the length of the shank to give more girth to the shank while also adding buoyancy to the fly. Once you find a good foam shape, keep the template. Good luck!
-Jeff
Thanks Jeff! I picked up a couple things in your explanation.
Hey Seth, once you have a shape that works for you contact Tony at River Road Creations ( tony@riverroadcreations.com) and he will make you a real quality punch. He made up a couple for me and they work real well…their service is incredible…just send him a drawing to scale of what u want and he’ll make it up.
I’m going to Alaska in mid-May to fly-fish for whatever is going around, primarily silver salmon, pink salmon, dolly varden, rainbow, grayling, and steelhead. You guys got any recommendations for the early fisherman? Most of the places I wanted to fish for king are closed!!!! Thanks for your help. David
Hi David, thanks for stopping by! Which part of the state are you headed to? You’re definitely going to be early for salmon fishing – it’ll likely be a trout/grayling/dolly program in mid-May.
Going to Anchorage area first week of Jube. Any suggestions. Never been to Alaska before. Only a fair fly fisher. But I love it