Deneki Outdoors Fishing Lodges

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Alaska West

Is Your Hook Sharp Enough?

It goes without saying; sharp hooks catch more fish than dull hooks. Not only do they allow for better penetration into the hard mouths of tough fish, sticky-sharp hooks also allow for a greater margin of error for poor hook-sets as well. Regardless, we find many anglers still regularly fish hooks that are not nearly…
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New Fly Tying Shanks from Aqua Flies

If you’ve been following along on our blog/newsletter or have spent any time with us at our lodges in Alaska or British Columbia, you know we love fishing stinger/trailer hook style fly patterns for everything from king salmon, to steelhead, to resident trout and char. For years, the majority of stinger style ‘shank’ flies constructed…
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Timeless Tips: 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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Costa Sunrise Silver Mirror Lenses – Review

Whether scanning the flats for bonefish, permit, or tarpon, or creeping along the bank of a gin-clear side channel in hopes of spotting a wild trout, when it comes to sight-fishing; polarized sunglasses are a must. That being said, while most anglers today are well aware of the advantage of polarized lenses for reducing glare…
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Timeless Tips: 6 Tips for Landing Big Fish

A while back we ran a post on the top 5 mistakes made fighting big fish, where we highlighted some of the most common mistakes we see at our lodges in Alaska and British Columbia when fighting big fish like steelhead and salmon. However, fighting fish well does not always put the fish in the net. In…
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Timeless Tips: 5 Ways to Catch More Rainbow Trout

Catching rainbow trout at Alaska West is not all that difficult – in fact it’s easy to catch ‘some.’ That being said, great anglers catch more, and great anglers catch the bigger ones.  Here are 5 ways you can make yourself into a ‘greater’ trout angler in our part of the world. Mend less.  Our…
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The Uni Knot – One Knot to Rule Them All

There are many ways to lose a fish, but there’s no way more disheartening than losing a fish to a faulty knot. Make no mistake, knot tying is a skill, and anglers who can tie good knots bring more fish to hand. There are many great fly fishing knots out there, most of which are…
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Fly Casting – Practice with Purpose

Practice makes proficient (there’s no such thing as perfect), but practice without purpose is a long road to improvement. Fly casting is no exception. As most anglers can attest, beautiful casting does not always translate to effective fishing. Therefore, if catching fish is your primary objective (which we have a feeling it might be), tailoring…
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Timeless Tips: 3 Slack-Line Presentations Every Trout Angler Should Know

As most effective trout anglers know, a well executed drift is far more important than a perfect cast. Whether we want our fly to drift naturally in the current, or swing through the water column at a particular depth, this is best achieved by mending – That is, repositioning the line on the water after the…
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