Whether bouncing a bead-head pheasant tail down your local tailwater or dredging a flesh fly in western Alaska, dead drifting sub-surface flies, or ‘nymphing,’ requires the ability to detect extremely subtle takes that are not always visual. For many anglers, various types of strike indicators are a huge help in detecting when a fish has taken…
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Rio Salvaje
Timeless Tips Tuesday: 6 Tips for Fishing Streamers from a Boat
When targeting rainbow trout from the boat, one of the techniques we like to use is called “bangin’ the banks”. Whether you’re using a streamer or a dry fly, it’s an effective technique and a fast-moving game, like a shooting gallery on the move. If you’re chucking streamers from a boat anywhere in the world…
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Fighting Fish – Take a Bow
Ever wondered why so many fish come unbuttoned during a jump? Is it coincidence? Hardly. Fish are able to contort their body faster and more violently when airborne than they can in the water. After all, there’s far less resistance in air than in water. When under tension, this can cause an unexpected yank on…
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Trout Fishing – Solving the Riddle
Last week we ran a post asking you, our readers, what you’d like to read about on our blog. We received a bunch of great comments and questions, one of which is the topic for today’s post: “When things (flies, techniques) aren’t working, how do you solve the riddle?“ There are an uncountable number of variables present…
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Trout Lies – Presenting to Submerged Structures
Today’s tip falls within the ‘common mistakes we see a lot of’ category. Most of us are well aware that any in-river structure (rocks, logs, snags, tundra clumps, ect.) make for potential holding lies for trout. Any object able to break up the speed of the current provides the opportunity for trout to hold comfortably in…
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Reading Trout Water – Fish the Transitions
If you haven’t noticed, we love fly fishing for trout, and while our trout might behave differently in western Alaska than trout found in more ‘classic’ trout streams, the fact remains; They’re still trout! Thus, they’re often found in the same types of water. Successfully reading trout water is by far one of the most studied…
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Turning ‘Bad’ Casts into Great Presentations
Good casts feel good, but good presentations catch fish and today Alaska West guide, Greg Houska, is coming at us with a great writeup on how saving the less-than-perfect cast can help you catch more fish in the long run. Enjoy! Turning ‘Bad’ Casts into Great Presentations Not every cast is perfect, and you should never…
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Measure Nets – Why We Like Them
Not all nets are created equal. A quality landing net is a guide’s most important tool, and when it comes to trout, we’re really particular about the nets we use. We recently outfitted our guide staff with measure nets for our trout population and we can honestly say they’re one of the better landing nets we’ve…
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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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Mind Your Line Scraps
While sitting around the camp fire at Andros South, ice cold Kaliks in hand, we got into an interesting discussion.. How long does monofilament actually take to break down? Not just ‘weaken’ mind you, but actually biodegrade completely? Weeks, months, years? Many of you have probably heard that fluorocarbon monofilament takes a lot longer to…
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