When swinging flies for salmon and steelhead, a question we get asked a lot is ‘what sink tip should I use?’ or ‘how do I know what sink tip to start with?’ Like all things fly fishing, there is no rule of thumb that pertains to every situation. There are far too many variables from…
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Tips
Adjustable Indicator Rigs
We’re on the back half of our season here in Alaska and that can only mean one thing.. It’s steak and eggs season! This time of year, our resident rainbow trout are taking full advantage of the continuous supply of salmon parts tumbling down river. Therefore, we ‘match the hatch’ and fish our share of flesh and…
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Tying the Intruder Without a Dubbing Loop
Last week, our buddy Stuart Foxall gave us a great tying tip on a better way to create dubbing balls when tying intruder style flies. Stuart is a commercial fly tyer/designer for Aqua Flies, and is a master at constructing modern intruder style flies (among many, many, other patterns). When Stu takes to the vise at Alaska…
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Storing Rigged Fly Rods
We see a lot of broken fly rods over the course of a season. Although we’d love to dish out stories of huge, rod buckling fish, the majority of the time rods are broken getting in and out of a boat, sticking them in a ceiling fan, or other less glamorous ways. Safely storing your rods…
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Stuart Foxall on Better Dubbing Balls
We recently ran a post asking you what topics you’d like to see more of. More posts on fly tying was a common request and guess what – we listened! In fact, we reached out to Stuart Foxall, world class fly designer and Deneki host for some state of the art tying content. Part of Loop Tackle’s development…
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Set With the Swing
When swinging flies for salmon and steelhead, we find setting the hook to the side (as opposed to straight up) will result in more fish to the net. We often use the phrase ‘set towards the bank,’ however we realize this can be confusing when fishing anywhere other than a big long gravel bar. The…
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A Lesson from Ol’ Chumley
The chum salmon are in at Alaska West and that can only mean one thing – it’s rod breaking season! While we certainly witness our share of broken rods throughout the season, we tend to see more rods break while targeting chums than any other species. Why? Because chums are some of the scrappiest fish we’ve ever…
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Swinging for Chums
With a current closure on king salmon at Alaska West, we’ve been targeting more species on the swing than ever this season. We love fishing with a two handed rod and the opportunities available are endless on our river. We have a hefty run of strong, chrome bright, sea-lice toting chum salmon throughout the majority…
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Mousing for Trout – Try a Strip Set
On our Alaskan rivers, targeting big leopard rainbows with gaudy rodent imitations is not only visually appealing, but also very productive at certain times of the year. Takes can be ferocious and often unexpected. However, one of the most common faults when mousing for trout is setting the hook too early. It’s important to…
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Be Nice to Non-Targets
OK, OK we get it – when you’re swinging flies for steelhead and you can’t keep the pink salmon off, it’s sometimes a little bit annoying. When you’re targeting big rainbow trout and a bunch of little dollies keep climbing on, your rig might get a little screwed up every now and again. But still –…
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