To the uninitiated, swinging flies effectively for anadromous fish might not appear overly complex – Cast across the river with a slightly downstream angle, make a mend, and let your fly swing on through until you feel the take. Sounds simple enough, right? While we’re really lucky to fish runs at Alaska West that tend…
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Archives for June 2017
Weekly Fish Story – First Fish of the Season
There are many questions that run through a guide’s head on the first day of the season. “Where should I fish? Did I tie the right flies? Are the fish going to cooperate?” However, the more time and seasons spent out on the water, the more these questions begin to fade and become easier to…
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Timeless Tips: Alaska King Salmon Season – Your Quiver
Today’s installment of our timeless tips series of posts focuses on your ideal rod quiver for our fishery in Alaska from mid-June to mid-July. This time is often referred to as ‘king season’, and that it certainly is, but kings aren’t the only game in town. Must Have A 9 weight spey rod between 12 and…
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The Bunny Snaelda – Tying Instructions
Last year our pal and long time Deneki guest, Nic Jepson, shared with us a great step by step on how to tie the Franc N Snaelda – a killer European fly pattern originally designed for Atlantic Salmon that we’ve witnessed work extremely well on our king salmon at Alaska West. Today, professional fly designer,…
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Mousing for Trout – Work Upstream
When mousing for trout, we tend to target fish using two different methods – banging the banks from the boat while rowing ‘drift boat style,’ or walking smaller side channels on foot. Both methods have their advantages. Fishing from a moving boat covers far more water than wading, in theory allowing you to put your…
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Arctic Grayling – Fish the Traditionals
For the majority of our guests at Alaska West, the first few weeks of our season is all about two things -swinging flies for big bright king salmon and/or chucking big mouse and sculpin imitations for hungry rainbow trout. However, during the first part of our season, an often overlooked species on our river are…
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Timeless Tip Tuesday: Swinging Flies – Cast, Then Step
Cast, mend, swing fly, take a few steps downriver, repeat. That’s how you fish for steelhead, right? Not necessarily. Michael White stops by in video form today, straight from the Dean River, to tell us a bit about how he likes to present flies to steelhead. The basic idea – rather than stepping downriver after…
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Opening Day at Alaska West
Today marks the opening day of our fishing season at Alaska West. Our guests and guides are taking to the water this morning to cut the first tracks on the Kanektok for the 2017 season, and needless to say, we couldn’t be more excited. We’ll be on site all season long, and plan on keeping…
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History of the Intruder – Interview with Jerry French
Steelhead anglers rejoice! The folks from the Ashland Fly Shop recently conducted a great interview with our pal and Alaska West family member, Jerry French, featuring some great insight on fly selection, spey casting, and an in-depth history of the evolution of the intruder-style fly patterns many of us use today. If you like swinging flies…
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First Alaska West King of 2017
Our 2017 opener at Alaska West is only a few days away, and we’re happy to report that our annual run of king salmon are trickling in as planned. In fact, earlier this week, after a long day of prepping camp for the upcoming season, Deneki team member, Chris Vague, hit the water for a…
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