10 Things That Happened at Alaska West This Year

“We had another great year at Alaska West.”

Our home rivers at Alaska West are such incredible fisheries that we sometimes lose perspective.  Our fishing is just so darned productive and so darned consistent – it’s not like this everywhere, even in Alaska!  In the face of challenging returns elsewhere in the state and in the region, the Kanektok and Arolik Rivers just keep pumping out beautiful fish in incredible numbers.

2011 at Alaska West

We just finished up our 2011 season, and guess what – it was another great one.  We had our best crew ever, with an all-return guide staff.  We started off with kings on swung flies and two-handed rods.  We had a super late July ‘variety hour’.  We had great trout fishing all season long, and August provided yet another dose of silver/rainbow/dolly mayhem.

We posted detailed fishing reports for every week of our season – you can check them out here.  If you like pictures better than words, check out point #10 below.

We really can’t sum up our season at Alaska West in a few paragraphs, so we’re not going to try.  Instead, we’re just going to pass on 10 things that happened this year – everybody loves lists, right?

10 Things That Happened in 2011 at Alaska West

1. Bill Bakun caught 25 silvers on the morning of his first day fly fishing.  Yes, you read that right – that’s how crazy our silver fishing can be.  It’s like that a lot, actually.
2. A bunch of great folks from the U.K. joined us during king season and classed the joint up a bit.
3. We had excellent late king fishing – right through the 3rd week of July.
4. One of our guides turned 60!  We’re not naming names.
5. Jeff Hickman, Charles St. Pierre, Tom Larimer and Brian Niska delivered guest spey instruction during the first 5 weeks of our season.  There’s no better place in the world to learn two-handed casting – really.
6. Gary Davisson caught a really nice big rainbow trout on the Lower River in August.
7. The dollies were huge, again.  They seem to be getting bigger every year recently.
8. It rained some, but not nearly as much as last year (thank goodness).
9. John Baskin landed a beautiful big chrome hen king salmon, and we were all thrilled for him.
10. We posted photo galleries from each week of our season on our Facebook page.

If the last 15 years are any indication, we’re going to have excellent fishing in 2012 at Alaska West.  Want to get in on the fun?  Drop us a line.