• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Deneki Outdoors Fishing Lodges

Alaska | The Bahamas | Chile

  • About Deneki Outdoors
  • Our Fishing Lodges
    • Alaska West
    • Andros South
    • Rapids Camp
    • Rio Salvaje
  • Deneki Blog
    • Alaska West
    • Andros South
    • Chile
    • Fish
    • Fishing Reports
    • Fly Tying
    • Gear
    • General
    • Guest Posts
    • News
    • Rapids Camp
    • Rio Salvaje
    • Tips
  • Contact Us

Jul 18 2011

Rainbow Trout Flies – 5 Favorites for Alaska

Rainbow Trout on our favorite flies.

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.

  1. 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.
  2. Hickman’s Egg Stealing Super Sculpin.  Sculpins produce all season long.  This is a big fly for big fish.
  3. Silvey’s Tandem Tube – Black Egg Sucker.  Black leeches work anywhere trout swim.  The tandem tube has super movement in the water.
  4. 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.
  5. 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…

More Favorite Flies

  • Dean River Steelhead Flies – 5 Favorites
  • Alaska Silver Salmon Flies – 5 Favorites
  • Bonefish Flies for South Andros – 5 Favorites

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Seth says

    July 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    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.

  2. Jeff Hickman says

    July 20, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    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

  3. Seth says

    July 21, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    Thanks Jeff! I picked up a couple things in your explanation.

  4. Joni says

    June 7, 2012 at 11:06 am

    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.

  5. David M. Delo says

    February 6, 2014 at 5:32 pm

    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

  6. andrew says

    February 9, 2014 at 5:10 pm

    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.

  7. Robert Laird says

    May 22, 2014 at 3:23 pm

    Going to Anchorage area first week of Jube. Any suggestions. Never been to Alaska before. Only a fair fly fisher. But I love it

Trackbacks

  1. No Felt Soles in Alaska | Reminder for Anglers in 2012 says:
    June 5, 2012 at 6:02 am

    […] 5 Favorite Alaska Trout Flies […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Plan Your Trip

Let our experts plan the fishing adventure of your dreams.
Contact Now

Search Topics

Subscribe to our newsletter

All Blog Posts

Recent Posts

  • 7 Most Popular Smoked Salmon in the World
  • Fly Tying: March Brown by Kevin Foley
  • Who Doesn’t Like Potcakes?- Support The Bahamas by Helping the Potcakes
  • Tips on Mousing for Rainbow Trout and Grayling at Alaska West
  • What’s Happening with Pebble Mine- Good News for Alaska

All About Spey

All About Trout

All About Bonefishing

All About Gear

Best Posts

Footer

Deneki Outdoors

Mailing address:
200 W 34th Ave.
PMB 1170
Anchorage, AK 99503

Office:
4451 Aircraft Drive
Suite 202
Anchorage, AK 99502

US Information and Reservations
800-344-3628

International Information and Reservations
+1 907-563-9788

Email: info@deneki.com

Our Lodges

Rapids Camp
King Salmon, Alaska

Alaska West
Kanektok River, Alaska

Andros South
South Andros Island, The Bahamas

Rio Salvaje
Puerto Montt, Chile

Deneki Outdoors thanks Peter Viau, Tosh Brown, Abe Blair, Kyle Shea and Kara Knight for the beautiful photography used on our sites.

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

#denekioutdoors

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Copyright © 2023 · Deneki Outdoors · Privacy Policy · Site by 21 Designs