When fishing for trout in Western Alaska, we dead drift a lot of sub surface patterns in search of the big boys. The majority of a trout’s diet is found near the bottom of the water column. Therefore, nymphing is essential to consistently hooking trout. While most of the time we fish flesh and egg…
Read More
Alaska West
All About Spey Rigging
We make sure to pick the brains of the many guests who frequent our lodges on what topics they would like to see most on the blog. Whether in Alaska or the Bahamas, a reoccurring request is a more comprehensive explanation of spey gear. Modern rods, lines, tips and so on are constantly evolving and…
Read More
Untwisting Your Fly Line
There’s nothing more disheartening than attempting to make your shot at a tailing bonefish or permit only to find the tangled coils of a twisted fly line bunched up against your stripping guide. Regardless of your skill level, type of fly line, or whether you fish in fresh or salt water, fly line twist is…
Read More
5 Ways to Control the Speed of Your Swing
When swinging for anadramous species like king salmon or steelhead, more often than not, the slower the swing the better. As long as it is moving just enough to suggest life in your fly, odds are you are in the game. However, from time to time, increasing the speed of your swing can be just…
Read More
19 Reasons to Fish a Mouse Fly
It’s no secret how much we love fishing mouse patterns for big Alaskan rainbow trout. We do a lot of it and, as odd as it may sound, it is our most productive method for catching trout on the surface. With a conveyor belt of salmon flesh and eggs throughout an already short growing season,…
Read More
Color Coding Sink Tips
Changing sink tips on the river already takes up valuable time that your fly should be in the water. When it comes time to change tips, the last thing you need is to open up your tip wallet to find a heap of unorganized tips of varying densities. While some tips (such as RIO’s MOW…
Read More
5 Tips for Casting Heavy Rigs and Flies
With only a few short months away until we start our season in Alaska, we couldn’t help but think about chucking big gaudy flies and rigs to the plethora of species that call our river home. Whether it is heavily weighted flies, split shot ridden nymph rigs, or ‘dredger style’ sink tips, there is nothing…
Read More
Retrieving the Mouse Fly
Mousing for trout in western Alaska is about as cool as it gets. We’re not talking about strapping on the headlamp for night time browns or waiting for a “mouse hatch” every seven years (although they both sound awesome as well!), we’re talking about chucking big gnarly mammal imitations day in and day out to…
Read More
Single Handing for Kings
It’s getting to be that time of year when our minds start drifting off to thoughts of big Western-Alaska trout and chrome-bright pacific salmon. The Alaska fishing season will be here before you know it, and with it comes the earliest of the Pacific salmon, the king salmon. Kings might just be the baddest freshwater…
Read More
9 Questions About King Salmon You Were Afraid to Ask
Today we’re coming at you with another addition of a series of posts addressing some basic questions on the topics we cover most. We’ve already covered some of the basic questions involving Alaskan trout, bonefish, and even spey fishing. Now its time to address the biggest and baddest of them all, the king salmon. 9…
Read More