From the river to the flats, we’ve long been fans of sling packs for toting around our gear, especially whenever fishing on foot. We think they’re a great cross between the versatility of a hip pack, with the high-riding comfort of a full back pack, and rarely hit the water these days without one. However,…
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Gear
Meiho Adjustable Fly Boxes
We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again – well organized gear catches more fish. How so? Simple – Time spent looking for gear on the water is time spent not catching fish. When it comes to organizing flies, we generally subscribe to the ‘mothership’ approach – large, inexpensive, simple boxes able to hold…
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Spey Rods for King Salmon – Our Favorites
Spey fishing for king salmon is not for the light hearted. It puts rods, reels, lines, knots, and mental toughness to the test. It’s not uncommon for one (or more) of the aforementioned to break, and more often than not, its the latter. However, today we’re not talking about broken hearts, we’re talking about rods…..
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Timeless Tips: Alaska King Salmon Season – Your Quiver
Today’s installment of our timeless tips series of posts focuses on your ideal rod quiver for our fishery in Alaska from mid-June to mid-July. This time is often referred to as ‘king season’, and that it certainly is, but kings aren’t the only game in town. Must Have A 9 weight spey rod between 12 and…
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Rigging Backing Solo
When rigging fly reels for hard fighting species like king salmon, bonefish, or any other fish capable of long blistering runs, we’re sticklers for winding on backing tight.. Really tight. Backing wound on too loosely (like you might reel up your fly line), is bound to cut into itself, particularly on hard pulling fish, locking…
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What Vise Do You Tie On?
We love tying flies, and we know many of you do too. However, as much as we love telling you about our favorite fly patterns, tools, and materials in the world of fly tying, sometimes we like to hear from you! Today is one of those days. That’s right, it’s poll time again on the…
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Kast Velocity Jacket
Alaska can take a toll on outerwear, and as far as we’re concerned, if it survives multiple seasons in our neck of the woods, that’s a testament to quality. Over the last few seasons, we’ve noticed Alaska West guide, Jason Whiting, sporting the same mid-layer jacket day in and day out (don’t worry, he washes it, we…
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Rainbow Trout Flies – Our Favorites at Rapids Camp Lodge
A couple weeks back we presented you with a list of some of our favorite flies for our resident rainbow trout population at Alaska West. However, in case you weren’t already aware, that’s not the only lodge we operate in Alaska! We also run a fantastic fly-out operation called Rapids Camp Lodge, situated on one the world’s…
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Work Sharp Guided Field Sharpener
We fillet a lot of salmon at our Alaskan lodges each summer, and the key to filleting fish well (and safely we must add) is a good sharp knife. For that reason, most of our guides never hit the water without some sort of sharpener, to ensure their knife is good and sharp at all times. In…
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Rainbow Trout Flies – Our Favorites at Alaska West
We’re in the process of filing up our boxes for our summer season at Alaska West (we hope some of you are too), and we’ve got one of our favorite species on our mind – Big, wild, Alaskan, leopard rainbow trout. Therefore, for all those looking to stock up on flies for the coming season, we…
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