Tube flies and stinger hooks are very popular with anglers who chase salmon and steelhead with fly rods, for a few reasons. They allow you to change your hook without changing your fly. They allow you to fish a big fly without fishing a hook with a long shank, which helps you land more fish….
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King Salmon
The Kanektok River is Open for King Salmon Fishing
The Kanektok River, home of Alaska West, is open for king salmon fishing. Many of you have heard of the emergency closure affecting king salmon fishing on the Kenai River that was announced this past Friday. We feel really bad about the status of the Kenai – it’s an incredible river, and we and lots…
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King Salmon Fly Selection
George Cook pays us another visit today in video form, this time to talk about what 22 lucky anglers are going to be doing a week from today – selecting flies to use when chasing king salmon at Alaska West on the Kanektok. We filmed George in February of this year. He was looking forward…
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Larimer’s Reverse Marabou Tube Fly
One of Tom Larimer’s go-to flies these days for winter steelhead, summer steelhead and king salmon in Alaska is one of his own designs – the Reverse Marbou Tube. NOTE: If you’re viewing this in a newsletter or a reader, click here to hear Tom talk about his steelhead and salmon fly on YouTube. The…
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The Intruder
Warning: this is a very technical post about fly tying. If you’re not interested in the subtleties of tying one of the most influential modern steelhead and salmon patterns, click here to look at a bunch of pictures of fish. Jerry French may not have a household name in the world of anadromous angling in…
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King Salmon. Spey Rod. Chile.
If you’ve spent any time at all around our web site, you know that we’re kind of nutty when it comes to spey fishing. If you’ve followed our first few seasons operating at Chile West, you also may know that there are some pretty incredible king salmon down there. We’ve been catching these chinooks on…
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Oh My.
We recently came across another picture of our friend Jason and the rather ludicrous Chinook/king/giganto salmon with which he had a pretty favorable encounter at BC West on the Dean River a couple of years back. Chinooks this size on the Dean get hooked fairly regularly by fly anglers, but landing them is another story…
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Kings on the Swing
In the angling circles of the Pacific Northwest, there are still some doubters out there. We know because we run into them. “Kings don’t eat swung flies – you have to force-feed them nymphs.” “Sure, you might hook one, but then it’s like reeling in a mattress.” Folks who say those things have been fishing…
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Dean Chinooks – Top 5 Encounters
If you’ve heard much about the Dean River, you’ve heard that its anadromous fish are hot, strong and aggressive. If you’ve heard much about Dean River Chinooks, you’ve heard that they’re just pretty much insane. The reality is that more than half of your encounters with Dean River Chinooks are not going to end with…
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Pacific Salmon – They All Have Two Names
If you’ve ever been confused listening to people talk about the different species of Pacific Salmon, you’re not alone. No one knows why, but for some reason each of the five North American Pacific Salmon have two names. It’s really not that complicated! King Salmon = Chinook Salmon. No difference. Photo: Cameron Miller — Chum…
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