Last week we kicked off our master class on advanced bead fishing for rainbow trout with a great post on matching the egg-hatch courtesy of Rapids Camp Lodge guide, Alaska West alum, and certified bead ninja, Rob Rymph. Today, Rob is back with some great advice for choosing the appropriate hook size for the bead…
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Tips
How To Fix a Twisted Running Line – Video from OPST
We love mono running lines on our spey and switch rods. However, regardless of your casting ability, or even the type of running line you prefer, some amount of line twist is inevitable. Unlike traditional over head fly casting, the rotational nature of spey casting across multiple planes can cause a great deal of twist,…
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Taking Video to Correct Casting Faults
When it comes to improving your cast, there’s no substitute for practice. Lots of practice. However, without a second set of eyes, it can be difficult to gain an honest image of your own cast on which to improve upon, making ‘practice’ wildly inefficient, often leading to more frustration than improvement. For this reason, we…
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5 Reasons to Fish Poppers for Barracuda
We love fly fishing for barracuda, and while we might be fortunate to be located right in the middle of one of the best bonefish fisheries on the planet, we still spend a lot of time targeting them.. Contrary to popular belief, long, flashy, needlefish imitations aren’t the only fly worth tossing at ‘cuda. In…
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Jerry French’s Steelhead Sculpin – Fly Tying Video
A while back we shared a great fly tying video put together by our pals at North 40 Fly Shop on the Summer Sculpin, a great sculpin pattern for trout designed by anadramous authority and Alaska West alum, Jerry French. Well, they did it again, this time with a more steelhead worthy version of the…
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Fly Fishing for Barracuda – Roundup
We have comprehensive lists on bonefishing. We have dozens upon dozens of posts on fly fishing for trout in Western Alaska. We have even more posts dedicated entirely to fly fishing with spey rods.. However, we’ve yet to run a roundup of posts dedicated to one of our favorite species to target on a fly…..
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Timeless Tip Tuesday: Bonefish and Tides
Aaron Adams is one of the leading authorities on bonefish science. He works for the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust, one of the organizations out there at the forefront of research on bonefish. Even better, Aaron’s an angler himself, and that means he’s written some great science pieces that can also help you catch fish! Thanks very…
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Fly Casting – Don’t Creep on the Back Cast
One of the most common fly casting faults of all time, the number one cause of those pesky ‘wind’ knots, is known as “creep.” Most simply put, creep occurs most commonly by starting the forward cast too early, before the fly line is able to straighten on the back cast. The result? Too abrupt of…
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Listen While You Walk
Ask nine out of ten saltwater anglers their favorite thing about bonefish (or other flats species for that matter) and odds are you’ll get a response somehow related to the parallel between fishing and hunting. Stalking your quarry, only ever making a cast once you (or your guide of course) has spotted a fish, is…
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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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