It’s inevitable. If you do any sort of casting your leader or tippet will eventually fall victim to a wind knot that will weaken your line. If you’ve ever lost a fish because your leader snapped at a wind knot, we know the feeling. Now, if you’re lucky enough to find a wind knot near…
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Alaska West
Gear Review: Tornado Anchor
It’s been a while since we have seen much innovation or thought go into new anchoring systems for small freshwater craft. We are talking primarily about jet boats under 20’, drift boats, rafts and catarafts. Well, now there is the Tornado Anchor and it’s a pretty interesting take on an anchor. First off, this anchor…
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3 Simple Tips to Improve your Double Spey Cast
The Double Spey cast is a nice, fluid, and fundamental Spey casting technique. It is also one of the most popular casts in the Spey cast arsenal. Here are a few tips to help with correct anchor placement and effectively loading the rod. Tip 1: Place the connection between the head and the tip in front of you. – While…
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Advanced Bead Fishing for Trout: Matching Bead to Hook Size
With it being mega rainbow season here in Alaska, specifically at Rapids Camp Lodge on the Naknek River, this is the second post this week on advanced bead fishing tips. You can find the post on advanced bead fishing for rainbow trout about matching the egg-hatch here. Both of these posts are courtesy of Rapids…
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Guide’s Corner: Hawkeye at Alaska West
Army Veteran and former Professional Rodeo Cowboy, Phil “Hawkeye” Hawkins, has been leading Alaska West clients on phenomenal outdoor fishing experiences as a Guide and Set-Up Lead for the last nine seasons. This Veteran is a lover of all things fishing, outdoors, and dogs. During the offseason here at Alaska West, Hawkeye also serves as…
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Fly Tying: Flesh & Bone
To start off I’d like to tell you of an early experience in my Alaska sportfishing career that might help you make a bit of sense out of the fly recipe below. This was the early 90’s and I had only been in Alaska a couple of years at that point and also just out…
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Deneki Chronicles: Secrets of the Flesh Fly
Sometimes all it takes is a little flesh. Photo: Ramsey Smith Trout that live in the lower sections of rivers like the Kanektok and the Arolik in Western Alaska gets a lot of their calories from salmon flesh. That means that at Alaska West we spend a lot of time tying and fishing patterns that…
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Selecting Sink Tips
When swinging flies for salmon and steelhead, a question we get asked a lot is ‘what sink tip should I use?’ or ‘how do I know what sink tip to start with?’ Like all things fly fishing, there is no rule of thumb that pertains to every situation. There are far too many variables…
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Deneki Chronicles: Spey Fishing – Watch How Your Fly Lands
When swinging flies for salmon and steelhead, we talk a lot about the importance of ‘fly profile,’ the broadside silhouette the fly takes on while in the water. Many fly tyers go to great lengths trying to achieve the desired profile, and it is this idea that has stemmed many modern steelhead and salmon patterns….
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Swing is King
Swing is king. Long casts, and big mends, swinging is a technique that we not only appreciate here in Alaska West and Rapids Camp, but it is a method we enjoy. D loops, ripping the line off the water resulting in long, bombing casts then having faith that while the fly is going down and…
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