The latest issue of Swing the Fly (2018 Volume 2) recently hit the stands and we’re happy to announce that Alaska West guide, Ryan Gossett, is featured in the issue highlighting his go-to pattern for winter steelhead; the Single Stage Squidrow. Not only is Ryan a great guide, he’s also one heck of a fly…
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Alaska West
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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The Steelhead Phantam – Tying Instructions
Great flies are developed out of necessity. To solve a problem. To catch fish in challenging conditions or situations where other patterns just don’t quite get the job done. That’s the basis behind Deneki pal, Daniel Cope’s Steelhead Phantam; a clever spin on Miguel Morejohn’s popular steelhead pattern, the Bantam, designed to target small-water coastal…
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Whitney Gould Claims 6th World Spey Casting Title
This past weekend, the Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club hosted the 15th annual Spey-O-Rama (SOR) World Spey Casting Championships in San Francisco, California. We’re pleased to announce that Deneki family member and Alaska West alum, Whitney Gould, took top honors in the women’s division of the international competition, earning her 6th (that’s right, sixth) world spey…
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Timeless Tips: Active Swinging Techniques for Trout
When swinging flies for species like steelhead or king salmon, more often than not a slow uniform swing is best. Rarely do salmon and/or steelhead actively feed upon first entering freshwater. Therefore, a slow uniform swing swept past the nose of the fish is usually the most likely presentation to elicit a strike. The take may…
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Plan D Tube Fly Boxes
We fish a lot of tube flies at our lodges in Alaska and British Columbia. Tubes offer a number of advantages over flies tied on traditional hooks, but perhaps their biggest disadvantage is their inability to be stored in a traditional fly box. When it comes to housing a season’s worth of tube flies, most…
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