One of our go-to flies at Chile West is the Chubby Chernobyl by Idylwilde. Depending on the color and size that you’re fishing, this giant dry fly might imitate an ant or a Cantaria beetle or a stonefly. We catch a lot of trout on Chubby Chernobyls, but we also love them as the dry…
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Gear
Airflo Skagit Compact – From The Source
Tom Larimer is more than a good buddy of ours – he’s one of the top handful of guides in the Northwest, and he also hosts a couple of trips each year to Alaska West and BC West. Tom also happens to have worked directly with Tim Rajeff at Airflo on the design of their…
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Streamer Fishing with Bass Weights
If you’re fishing streamers with the goal of specifically targeting bigger trout, you know that getting your fly to sink is a really important part of the equation. Weighted flies, split shot and sinktips are all popular options for getting your fly down, but they’ve each got drawbacks. Weighted flies don’t provide options for adjusting…
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Fishing Knots You Need
Ask 5 angling professionals which 5 knots are most important, and you may very well get 25 answers. In our humble opinion, here are the 5 knots you need to know for fly fishing, in priority order. Non-Slip Mono Loop. For attaching any sub-surface fly to your leader, this is our go-to knot. It’s extremely…
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Dry Out Your Gear: Universal Fly Fishing Tips
Today’s Universal Fly Fishing Tip is one that most anglers know, but few actually follow through on. After a day or a week or fishing, make sure you dry out your gear well. Gear that gets stored wet gets nasty. Waders stink, rod socks mildew, flies rust and backing turns black. When you’re done with…
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Silver Salmon Fly Selection
We’ve written in the past about some silver salmon flies that we like to use at Alaska West on the Kanektok River, but that was in boring old words-and-pictures blog format. Today we’ve got a video featuring George Cook, Northwest angling mainstay and Sage/Redington/Rio rep, telling us about his approach to selecting flies for silvers…
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Sage Click Reels
In lots of trout fishing situations, you don’t need a drag system that’s capable of stopping a locomotive. There, we said it! Slapping a mega-reel on a lightweight trout rod isn’t going to result in an outfit that’s well-balanced. And really, you don’t need all that technology most of the time. If you’re targeting trout…
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Camera Gear for Flats Fishing
Louis Cahill spent some time at Andros South last month shooting pictures of anglers having fun on the flats. He’s an actual professional photographer with 30 years under his belt, so we asked him for some advice on what kinds of photo gear he likes to use on the flats. Here’s Louis, in video form!…
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Bring a Raincoat: Universal Fly Fishing Tips
We’ve got another entry today in our series of universal fly fishing tips – pointers that hold true no matter where in the world you’re chasing fish with a fly rod. Any time, anywhere you’re going fishing, your should bring a raincoat. Alaska in June is pretty obvious…April in the Bahamas might be a little…
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Spey Lines for Switch Rods
Today’s post is about using spey lines on switch rods, including some background on why you probably should cut a line for your rod, and the steps you can take to do just that. It’s written for people who have a bit of spey casting experience. Background First, a disclaimer that today we’re mainly talking…
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