You can cast it overhead too, but we almost never do. If you haven’t noticed, we really like spey fishing for trout, and for swung trout flies in smaller water, we think switch rods are pretty cool too. One of our favorite trout switch rods so far is the Sage 5110-4 Z-Axis. Here’s why. The…
Read More
Search Results for: rainbow alaska
Spey Fishing for Trout, Part 3 – Tactics
Trout spey tactic #427: Put the wood to ’em. Photo: Cameron Miller In the past couple of weeks we’ve covered why we think you should spey fish for trout, and which gear you should use when you do it. Today we’ll talk a bit about tactics to use when chasing rainbows with lightweight two-handers. Spey…
Read More
Trout Fishing: Terminology
Garrett Sullivan fishes the bucket. What a surprise. Today we start a series of posts about classic trout fishing tactics. In this series, we’re not talking about the salmon-part-eating rainbows of Western Alaska— we’re talking about the mainly-insect-eating critters of the Rockies and the Northeast and our ‘classic trout’ fishery in Southern Chile. Much of…
Read More
Top 7 Tips – Fly Fishing for Dorado
Yes, this is a productive, healthy harvest fishery. Fly fishing for dorado in a super-productive fishery like the Tongue of the Ocean off of South Andros Island is a ton of fun. The basic formula is fairly straightforward: locate cover which also locates bait, locate fish, strip flies. There’s a little more to it than…
Read More
6 Ways to Catch More Silver Salmon
Got one. Photo: Cameron Miller On the Kanektok River where we operate Alaska West, and on other rivers like it in Western Alaska, the classic method for catching silver salmon on flies involves targeting them in slow-moving water, casting a floating line, and stripping back a weighted fly. Here are 6 ways to make the most of this…
Read More
Fishing with Kids
Seriously, kids are fishy. Photo: Mike Duffy One of the best parts about being in the fishing lodge business is having the opportunity to host family groups at our lodges. We absolutely love having kids around, and watching the experiences that family groups have together couldn’t be more gratifying. Fathers, daughters, sons, mothers, uncles, grandparents…
Read More
Secrets of the Flesh Fly
Sometimes all it takes is a little flesh. Photo: Ramsey Smith Trout that live in the lower sections of rivers like the Kanektok and the Arolik in Western Alaska get a lot of their calories from salmon flesh. That means that at Alaska West we spend a lot of time tying and fishing patterns that…
Read More
Arctic Grayling
OK, maybe this one didn’t eat a dry. Photo: Cameron Miller There’s a species that we love to catch at Alaska West that we don’t talk about much, and that’s the Arctic Grayling. They’re small. Let’s get that out of the way from the get-go. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game calls any grayling…
Read More
Why We Like Spey Casting
An angler covers a lot of water without hurting his shoulders. Photo: Cameron Miller When it comes to fishing for kings on the Kanektok, or fishing for steelhead on the Dean, we really like Spey casting. Spey rods are getting a lot more popular these days. That being said, we hear from a lot of…
Read More
Sage 690-4 Z-Axis – 5 Things to Like
Don’t use a 4-weight on me. Photo: Cameron Miller We like the Sage 690-4 Z-Axis. Why? It’s got the backbone to land giant Kanektok River leopard rainbows. If you can only bring one trout rod to Alaska West, we’re going to recommend a 6 weight. We fish big flies on heavy tippet for big fish…
Read More