At our Alaskan operations, we’re really lucky to have access to some extremely diverse trout fisheries. At any point during the season at Alaska West, we target trout by sight fishing for rainbows in side channels, fishing the main river on foot, or fishing from our jet boats ‘drift boat style.’ The beauty of our river is that trout can…
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casting
Presenting on the Backcast – 3 Common Mistakes
Being able to present the fly quickly and effectively on the back cast is one of the most important casts to know on the flats. Presenting the fly well on your back cast enables you to cast safely when the wind is on your right shoulder (or left shoulder for you leftys), as well as cast to fish on either side…
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Better Double Hauling
A well executed double haul is essential to nearly all avenues of fly casting. Whether it’s casting further, casting better into the wind, turning over heavy flies, or just taking the load off of your rod arm, the double haul is the secret sauce, and therefore worth perfecting. Today we’re coming at you with a bit…
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How Far Should I Lead a Bonefish?
A question we get asked all the time at Andros South is ‘how far should I lead a bonefish?’ In other words, how far in front of the fish should I aim my cast? Bonefish are almost always moving and therefore it is important to present the fly far enough in front to avoid ‘lining’…
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3 Ways to Cast Further
Casting a long ways is not anywhere close to the most important skill in fly fishing. We’d actually tell you that casting too far is one of the leading causes of not catching fish…but that’s a topic for another day! Bombing long casts is fun, and every once in a while, you need to cast…
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Fly Casting – Creep vs. Drift
Warning: this is a semi-detailed post on correcting a common fly casting fault. If you’re not into the detailed mechanics of fly casting, click here for some big fish photos instead! Fly casting is an art that will never be perfected, only improved upon. It’s part of what makes the sport great! Nonetheless, there are…
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Casting Down Wind
We’ve run many posts in the past about casting in the wind, and for good reason- it’s tough! Most of the time we’ve concentrated on how to cast directly into the wind, or when the wind is on your casting side. These are the most difficult wind directions to cast into and cause the most trouble…
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Congrats Again, Whitney!
Alaska West‘s own Whitney Gould is once again the world champion of spey casting! Earlier this month at the Spey-O-Rama in San Francisco, Whitney won the women’s division with casts of 129, 135, 132 and 138 feet. Wow. Congratulations, Whitney! We’re super proud of you. More on Spey Casting All About Spey Fishing Rotate Your…
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Spey Casting – Top 3 Casting Faults
We do a lot of spey casting at our lodges, and in turn a lot of spey casting instruction. When working with anglers on their casting, we tend to see many of the same casting faults while making the transition from single hand fly casting to spey casting. Here are the 3 most common spey…
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5 Tips for Casting Heavy Rigs and Flies
With only a few short months away until we start our season in Alaska, we couldn’t help but think about chucking big gaudy flies and rigs to the plethora of species that call our river home. Whether it is heavily weighted flies, split shot ridden nymph rigs, or ‘dredger style’ sink tips, there is nothing…
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