Adam Kryder was a fantastic addition to our guide staff at Alaska West this year. He noticed something pretty profound about angling and attitudes and was kind enough to write it up for us. Thanks, Adam! The Power of Positivity Guiding at Alaska West has given me a great gift. As a guide I am…
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Alaska West
Making Loops on Sinktips
A second installation in our sinktip strategies novella, here’s a looping method that began as what Alaska West guide Jeff Hickman dubbed a ‘bush fix,’ and has since become one of the two main ways we’re custom building on-the-river sinktips to suit the current conditions. First off, get yourself about 40 feet of Rio’s T-whatever….
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Art.
They’re just such cool looking fish. They’re colored up like this during July and August at Alaska West. More on Dolly-Char Slideshow Wildest Fish Ever 4 Reasons to Chase Them
Skagit Casting – Keep Your Hands Close
When you’re making spey casts in the Skagit style, try to keep your hands as close to your body as possible! Ed Ward, long-time guide at Alaska West and one of the fathers of Skagit-style spey casting, has been called “the man who can spey cast inside a phone booth”. That’s a bit of an…
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Pacific Salmon Feeding in Fresh Water?
Pacific salmon don’t feed in fresh water – everybody knows that, right? Wrong. Brian Morrison, fisheries biologist and author of several recent posts on fish lifecycles in Western Alaska, is back today to tell us about some recent research findings that prove conventional wisdom wrong. Read on. Salmon Feeding in Fresh Water? Many anglers have…
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Keep Your Hooks Sharp
Spencer Dixon was a first-year guide at Alaska West this year, and everybody who met him was blown away by his skill, his work ethic, his enthusiasm and his fishiness. Turns out Spencer can write too! Here’s the first what we hope will be a long series of posts from him. Thanks, Spencer! The Importance…
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Bulk Hooks
Big fish. Big water. Bigger grabs. You know you’re gonna go through more than a few hooks when fishing deep for salmon and steelhead. Here’s why we like to buy in bulk for rigging tube and stinger-style flies.: Cost savings. While the average cost-per-hook price is relatively the same for hooks purchased in 25 or 100…
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Plan Your 2013 Alaska Fishing Now.
Wait, didn’t the summer season at Alaska West just end? Yep, it did – and that makes now the perfect time to get your 2013 trip planned. You see, we give all of our guests the first right of refusal to rebook their trip with us the following year. That means that we don’t actually…
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Bullet Weights, Part 2: Still Crittery
Last week we gave you a glimpse into the very non-traditional world of using bullet weights with your steelhead and salmon flies. Today, more details! Next time you’re at the vise setting strategy for the ultimate Alaska West or BC West fly program, consider tying a bunch of flies without any weight. Tying on plastic…
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Coho Salmon Lifecycles
Over the last couple of months we’ve run a couple of really well-received posts from Alaska West guest and fisheries biologist Brian Morrison – on the lifecycles of rainbow trout in Western Alaska, and chinook salmon everywhere. Today we wrap up the mini-series with some facts from Brian on another favorite of ours, the coho…
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