Old technology meets big fish. Photo: Cameron Miller Charles St. Pierre is one of the best spey instructors in the Northwest, and we’re lucky to have him join us each year during kings at Alaska West on the Kanektok to teach our anglers the finer points of spey fishing. He’s also a super guy. Charles…
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Alaska West
Sage 5126-4 Z-Axis
This is a really good little spey rod. If you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty fired up these days about fishing lightweight spey rods for trout and smaller steelhead. In our minds, if a fish likes a swung fly, it’s a lot more enjoyable to give it to ’em with a two handed rod. The Sage…
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We Have a Winner!
Eric might catch one of these. Photo: Cameron Miller Congratulations to Eric Dawson from Oklahoma City, OK! Eric was randomly chosen yesterday from the list of subscribers to our blog newsletter, and won himself a free trip to Alaska West. To say Eric is excited is putting things mildly. He’s working on his schedule now…
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Spey Fishing for Trout, Part 3 – Tactics
Trout spey tactic #427: Put the wood to ’em. Photo: Cameron Miller In the past couple of weeks we’ve covered why we think you should spey fish for trout, and which gear you should use when you do it. Today we’ll talk a bit about tactics to use when chasing rainbows with lightweight two-handers. Spey…
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Alaska West Fishing Report: July 3 – 10
The final week of king fishing on the Kanektok and the guests are still bringing nice fish to hand. Photo: Cameron Miller We welcomed an international group of fisherman this week. Guests came from all over Europe, Canada and the US which made for a very interesting week. Everyone was here for the same reason…
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Skagit Master
Ed Ward, Jedi knight. Casting videos are a dime a dozen these days, but there’s one in production that we’re pretty excited about. Ed Ward is a legend in Northwest anadromous angling circles. He’s one of the pioneering Skagit River guides that started a literal revolution in casting and fishing techniques. He’s an innovate fly…
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Running Line Roundup
Running line from above Photo: Cameron Miller As you’ve probably noticed, since we do a lot of spey fishing for king salmon and steelhead at Alaska West and BC West, we play around with spey tackle a lot. Our team and most of our guests use Skagit-style line systems most of the time, and these…
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Bead Fishing for Rainbow Trout
Just a couple to choose from. Photo: Cameron Miller Rainbow trout in Western Alaska eat a lot of salmon eggs. Over the years a lot of different flies like the Glo Bug have been tied to imitate salmon eggs, but recently it’s become clear that the most effective way to trick a rainbow trout into…
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Jason Koertge on Talking Salmon to a Steelheader
Jason found a nice one on the Dean. Photo: Alfie King Jason Koertge has caught a lot of fish on swung flies. Besides having landed 52% of the kings and steelhead that have swum into Oregon since 2003, Jason has chased kings with us on the Kanektok and the Dean for the past few years….
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Alaska West Fishing Report: June 26 – July 3
The third week at Alaska West started out by welcoming back a bunch of great friends to the Kanektok. Photo: Cameron Miller Guys like Jon Bengtson, Bob Davids, Jon Magnussen, Gary Thayer, Joe Dudra, George Cook, Raz Reid, Frank Ogden, Jim Gilmore and Paul Leslie-Smith. About half of our guests were new to the Kanektok,…
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