Just a friendly reminder, the next time you’re handling a whole bunch of silver salmon, watch those fingers! Most anglers are aware that certain species of Pacific salmon (especially chum salmon) can have some pretty gnarly teeth during certain phases of their lifecycle. However, contrary to popular belief, all five species of Pacific salmon actually have…
Read More
Alaska West
Flesh Hatch
The flesh fly is a staple in any Alaskan trout fly box. Throughout the majority of the summer, our trout love to gorge themselves on chunks of salmon flesh – Big flesh, small flesh, fresh flesh, dead flesh.. You name it, there’s a time and place for each. That’s ‘matching the hatch’ in our neck of the…
Read More
Not Your Typical Double
One of the most exhilarating aspects of fly fishing is that each and every time your fly is in the water, you never quite know what could happen next – a perpetual level of faith if you will. Sort of like when you think you’ve doubled up on your umpteenth silver salmon of the day, only to…
Read More
Fighting Fish – Make ‘Em Earn the Reel
‘Tis the season for fighting fish! August in Alaska brings fast paced action for big feisty fish, and that means there’s no shortage of practice for fighting (and hopefully landing) fish. During this part of our season we see hundreds (yes, hundreds) of fish fought each week, and with that we’re able to get a good idea…
Read More
Bon Appétit
We’re always excited when a guest of ours puts together a post for our humble little fishing blog. After all, as far as we’re concerned there’s no better account than that from those that fish with us! Ed Novinsky recently fished with us at Alaska West, and although its difficult to call him a guest…
Read More
Weekly Fish Story – The Unintentional Grand Slam
We’re back with another edition of our ‘Weekly Fish Stories‘ series of posts where our guides and guests share their first hand experience of a notable moment on the water – A quick snapshot of awesomeness if you will.. Today’s weekly fish story comes from Alaska West guide, Jim Palmersheim, on a special day spent…
Read More
Alaska West Video by Magnus Jepson
Earlier this summer we had the good fortunate of fishing with our good friend and Alaska West guest, Magnus Jepson. Magnus has been joining us for a number of years now, and some of you might recall that that he’s put together some pretty cool video from his stays with us over the last few…
Read More
Happy Hump Day
It’s hump day today! And, it’s a humpy year here at our lodges. So, naturally we felt it necessary to present you with a cool photo of a humped out pink salmon caught by Alaska West guest, Worth McAlister. Pinks return to our rivers in force every even-numbered year. We get a few here and…
Read More
Whitney Gould’s Silver Swinging Rig
When it comes to fly fishing for silvers, it’s hard to argue against the effectiveness of stripping ridiculously colored streamers with a single handed 8-9 weight fly rod. However, one of our favorite things about silver season is that we’re fortunate to be able to target fish using a whole bunch of different methods, thus…
Read More
Weekly Fish Story – “Competitive Predators”
As you might expect, we hear a lot of great fish stories over the course of a week. In fact we’d go out on a limb to say there’s not a day that goes by during our season when we’re not swapping stories of a great fight, a killer eat, or just an all around…
Read More