When swinging for anadramous fish, we really like fishing flies with trailer hooks. Whether tied on tubes or ‘articulated’ style, flies rigged with a trailer hook offer a number of advantages over flies tied on a traditional long shank streamer hook. However, there’s a lot of debate over the best trailer hook out there. In…
Read More
Search Results for: King Salmon
Calculating Fish Weight – The Formula
The silver salmon fishing is as good as ever here at Alaska West and Rapids Camp Lodge, and not only are we catching a lot of silvers this year, we’re also catching a lot of bigger fish. That has our anglers are asking, “how big is that hog?”, which has us scratching our heads.. “Yeah, exactly how…
Read More
Comfortable, Casual Accommodations
You might be in the wilderness when you arrive at Rio Salvaje, but you are by no means roughing it! About the Lodge The lodge itself is a traditional two-story Chilean build. The downstairs has bedrooms for up to eight guests, each of which is double occupancy, and each bedroom has its own private bath…
Read More
World-Class Remote Fishing
One day you’re on foot casting dry patterns to rainbows. The next day you’re floating through fast-moving water, pitching a streamer at the bank in hopes of rousing a big predatory slab of a brown. The day after that you’re fishing a stonefly dry with a bead dropper to rainbows and browns stacked up on…
Read More
All About Dolly Varden
During the back half of our season at Alaska West, we’re lucky to witness a pretty amazing run of dolly varden, a species of char native to Western Alaska. Arguably one of the prettiest fish in our river, they’re also available in laugh-inducing numbers, making them an awesome fish to target on a fly rod….
Read More
Mousing for Chums?
We talk all the time about our run of chum salmon being extremely aggressive. They have a reputation for eating a lot of different flies, from leeches, to sculpins, to even flesh and egg patterns. They’re not afraid to hammer a fly, and that’s one of the reasons we think they’re so cool. Last week however,…
Read More
Angler’s Image Magnetic Hook Boxes
We fish a lot of tube flies for everything from salmon to trout. We think they offer a number of advantages over a traditional long shank fly, one of those advantages being the ability to quickly change out a dull or bent hook without changing flies. However, the size stinger hook suitable for salmon is not…
Read More
Rigging Beads for Trout – 3 Methods
It’s that time of year again. Our early run salmon (namely king, chum, and sockeye) are in full spawning mode, and because of that our rainbow trout and dolly varden are impatiently waiting for any lone salmon egg that happens to come tumbling down river. Salmon eggs are an easy meal for trout and dollies…
Read More
Hey There, Good Lookin’
No, we’re not talking about you Michael.. We’re talking about that massive, swung-up, chum salmon from Alaska West. Photographic awesomeness courtesy of Tosh Brown. More on Chum Salmon Swinging for Chums – 10 Reasons A Lesson from Ol’ Chumley Chum Salmon Mini Gallery
Stu’s Egg Intruder – Tying Instructions
Our buddy Stuart Foxall is back with another great step by step! Whether you’re fishing for steelhead, trout, dolly varden, or the like, this is one killer fly whenever spawning salmon are present. Stu’s Egg Intruder – Tying Instructions I came up with the idea of the egg intruder 5 or 6 years ago when swinging…
Read More