Our pal, Matt Vaughn, joined us this year for the first time during the last week of our season at Alaska West. Aside from putting a hurt on his share of leopard rainbows (trust us on this one, he crushed!), he also found time in between to take some great photos as well. Today we…
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Alaska West
Updated Reference Pages
We’ve written an awful lot of posts about fly fishing since we started our blog back in 2008. Seriously, we’re closing in on nearly 3,000 posts.. That’s a lot of articles about fly fishing, and we’d be willing to bet you haven’t read them all! That’s why we’ve organized many of our posts into ‘reference…
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Trout Fishing: Hold On To Your Hook Set
Today we present you with a simple tip that we’ve seen learned the hard way on, not one, but many heartbreaking occasions. When fishing for trout, particularly when fishing sub-surface flies from a drifting boat, most successful anglers agree that the most effective method of hooking fish on flies you can’t see is by setting…
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Get Down with Glass Beads
Today we present you with a quick, easy, and sexier way of adding weight to streamers.. Glass beads! We throw a lot of streamers over the course of the summer for our aggressive Alaskan trout, and contrary to popular belief, they eat them all summer long! That’s right, even during the height of the salmon…
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Happy Hump(y) Day
Because after flipping through some of our photos from the summer season, we couldn’t help ourselves but share this photo of Alaska West guide, Greg Houska, hoisting a humpy caught by Joseph Sherley-Dale. Happy hump day everyone! We hope this photo gets you through the rest of work week. More on Salmon Fishing Popper Fishing…
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Nice Fish, Kent!
Our pal Kent Ichiho joined us for the last week of our season this year marking his third consecutive year with us at Alaska West. During his stay, he mentioned how much he enjoyed fishing for our big leopard rainbows in the past, but had lost a few heartbreakers along the way. Well, we’re sure…
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Unsticking Fly Rod Ferrules – The Ice Method
We’re in the process of taking down our camp on the Kanektok for the winter, and as you might expect, we have our work cut out for us when it comes to breaking down rods, reels, lines, and a whole bunch of other gear for the off-season. While breaking down literally dozens of fly rods,…
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Greg Houska’s ‘Kriller’ Available at a Fly Shop Near You
We’re proud of the number of popular commercial fly patterns that have been developed over the years from our guides at Alaska West. We think its a testament to not only our incredible fishery, but also a long-standing fraternity of great (and incomparably nerdy) fishing guides. Well, we’re happy to report that another one of…
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Fall Colors
Fall starts early in Western Alaska, and while the first official day of fall might not be for a few more weeks, our dollies might say otherwise. Each season, our huge run of chrome, anadromous, dolly varden enter our river in early-mid july. However, as fall spawners, they undergo a massive transformation to their spawning…
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Reeling Right or Wrong?
Over the course of the year, we’re lucky to share the water with a lot of super great, super fishy, people from countries all over the world. That lends itself to some healthy angler debate at times, allowing us to keep up to date on the latest tips and techniques in the fly fishing world….
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