Most fly rod manufacturers these days offer lifetime warranties, and we say you should do whatever you can to take advantage of such generous offers. Paying repair fees is awesome, ruining your fishing day is super cool, and having to wait for your rod to be repaired is the most fun you’ll have this side…
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Alaska West
Ed Ward Skagit Casting Tip – Separating Planes (Video)
We’ll admit it, we’re casting nerds. Whether single or double handed, we love discussing the intricacies of fly casting. Luckily, we know many of you do too! With that in mind, the good folks from OPST and skagit casting legend, Ed Ward, are back with some more great skagit casting tips in video form. The…
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Fishpond Grand Teton Rolling Luggage – Review
With five different fly fishing lodges across four different countries, one thing we’re confident we know a little bit about is traveling with fishing gear. We’re constantly on the search for better ways to organize our gear when bouncing around from destination to destination, and if there’s anything we’ve learned over the years, its that…
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5 Ways to Land More Silvers
Our run of silver salmon have just began their annual return to our home river at Alaska West. What does that mean, exactly? It means it won’t be long until our river is teeming with hyper-aggressive, hard-fighting, chrome bright, acrobatic coho that readily take flies. Sound good? It should. Those who have experienced silver madness…
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Slam Season!
One of our favorite things about the middle of our season at Alaska West is the very real possibility to nab the Alaskan Grand Slam; landing all five species of Pacific salmon, all on a fly, all within the same fishing day.. There aren’t many rivers in the world where you can do that! With…
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Reason Number One to Fish Barbless Hooks
At Alaska West, we exercise an 100% barbless policy on all of our flies. That means our guides do their best to ensure that no fly is fished without smashing the barb down first. Some of our guests, particularly those who have not fished barbless hooks before, are often skeptical of this, but contrary to…
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Cole Cook’s ‘Big Poppa’ – Tying Instructions
Silver season is fast approaching (ahem, we may or may not have already seen a few) and we’re currently experiencing the height of our mind-boggling run of chum salmon on our home river at Alaska West. That can only mean one thing.. It’s popper season! We love tossing surface patterns for our ridiculous runs of…
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Guide Poll: The Difference Between a ‘Good’ and an ‘Elite’ Angler
We pride ourselves on the experience and know-how of our guide staffs at our lodges, many of whom have extensive guiding and/or fishing experience from all over the globe. That means we’re extremely fortunate to pull from a huge braintrust of uber-fishy people to consistently bring you the latest and greatest in fly fishing. With…
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Smoked Chum
We pride ourselves in keeping the best interest of our fisheries in mind at all times. That’s largely why we’ve adopted camp policies at Alaska West such as 100% barbless hooks, catch and release only on king salmon, as well as aim to handle to-be-released fish as ethically as possible. That being said, we’re also…
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Timeless Tips: Salmon Fishing – 6 Reasons this Fly Works
We’re really lucky in that most of the fish we target at our locations are not overly picky about specific fly patterns. Our lodges are located (intentionally, we might add) in areas where lots of different flies work, so long as they share a few characteristics. It’s a creative fly tyer’s dream! Here at Alaska…
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