At Alaska West and BC West, we spend a lot of time chasing anadromous fish with two-handed rods. We see this situation all the time: Angler arrives in camp with new spey rod. Angler sets it up with the line that his or her buddy/mentor/favorite author/shop guy/rep/mother-in-law said would work well. Angler fishes it for…
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fly lines
Rio Tropical Clouser – Sage and Rio Drawing
OK, this is your last warning. One week from today, we’re doing a drawing from the list of folks who are signed up for our weekly newsletter. The lucky angler whose name we draw is going to get sent, at no charge – not even postage, a $1375 super-high-end bonefishing setup – a Sage 890-4…
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Free Sage Xi3 Setup, Anyone?
Everyone who is signed up for our weekly newsletter on June 25 has a shot at winning a (very slightly used) Sage 890-4 Xi3 rod, a Sage 6080 reel and a matching Rio Tropical Clouser line. Really? Really. If you’ve been reading our blog over the past few weeks you haven’t been able to get…
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Airflo Bonefish Ridge Line Review
Airflo’s Ridge lines are pretty popular in the freshwater fishing world. We’ve been hearing about their bonefish line for a while now, and last month we got the chance to try one out at Andros South. Let’s start at the very beginning. What’s A Ridge Line? It’s a fly line made by Airflo that has…
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Airflo Skagit Compact – From The Source
Tom Larimer is more than a good buddy of ours – he’s one of the top handful of guides in the Northwest, and he also hosts a couple of trips each year to Alaska West and BC West. Tom also happens to have worked directly with Tim Rajeff at Airflo on the design of their…
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Spey Lines for Switch Rods
Today’s post is about using spey lines on switch rods, including some background on why you probably should cut a line for your rod, and the steps you can take to do just that. It’s written for people who have a bit of spey casting experience. Background First, a disclaimer that today we’re mainly talking…
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Creating a Whipped Loop
Today’s post marks the start of a little experiment of us – posting tips, gear reviews and more as short video clips. Our first crack at it features Bruce Chard showing us how to created a whipped loop in the end of a fly line. We know it’s not perfect (wind noise, fly line the…
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Rio Bonefish Line
Photo: Rio Products We’ve said in the past that for an all-around line to chase bonefish on South Andros Island, we think the Rio Tropical Clouser is the ticket. The short front taper on the Clouser line does a great job turning over big flies and getting your rod loaded quickly – both important traits…
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Rio Skagit Flight Review
Sorry, no product photo since the lines aren’t out yet. Here’s a guy casting! Photo: Cameron Miller Introduction and Warning This is a somewhat dorky, technical post about Rio’s new Skagit Flight, a shooting head for spey fishing. If you don’t care about spey fishing and would rather look at pictures of fish, click here….
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Spey Fishing for Trout, Part 2 – Gear
Workin’ the little rod on the Arolik. Photo: Cameron Miller UPDATE: Thanks for checking out this post in 2009. By 2012 spey fishing for trout had changed a bit, so we put out this post with an update on spey and switch fishing for trout as of 2012. Feel free to read on, though! We’ve…
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