We love swinging flies for anadramous fish, and we do a lot of it at our lodges in Alaska and British Columbia. However, swinging flies effectively often takes more than simply casting across the river and letting your line swing on through.. After all, it’s how your fly swims, not your line, that matters most. With…
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Spey
Spey TV Episode 6 – Don’t Out Kick Your Coverage
George Cook is back with the sixth installment of Spey TV, explaining why you don’t always have to “huck mega” when swinging flies for steelhead and salmon. Check out the video below for some fishy words of wisdom. Note: If you’re viewing this in a newsletter or reader, click here to view the video on our website….
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Spey Casting – Pull More, Push Less
We do a lot of spey fishing at our lodges in Alaska and British Columbia, and by far one of the most common mistakes we see spey anglers make on a day to day basis is not using enough bottom hand on the forward cast. At one time or another, every beginning spey caster has heard, “pull…
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Spey Line Recommendations – Updated
Choosing the right line for your spey rod is important. Even more so than with single hand rods, the wrong line on a two handed rod can greatly hinder casting ability and become extremely frustrating in the process. However, determining which line will best match your spey rod of choice can be confusing. Skagit? Scandi? Grains? Luckily,…
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Trout Spey Retrieve Methods – Video
Swinging flies for trout on light weight two-handers has gained quite a bit of popularity over the last few years, and for good reason.. It’s super fun! In a lot of ways, spey fishing for trout is very similar to swinging flies for salmon and steelhead. The casting is nearly identical, and most of the…
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Spey TV Episode 5: Critical Elements of Presentation
The good folks from Spey TV are back with another great video on the fundamentals of spey fishing. Episode 5 focuses on the finer points on presenting the fly throughout swing from spey legend, Charles St. Pierre. If you’ve ever wondered if you’re fly is doing the ‘right’ thing throughout the swing, we think you’ll…
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Spey TV Episode 4: Running Line Management
When it comes to skagit or scandi style spey casting, good line management is key to remaining tangle free and achieving maximum distance. We’ve ran a bunch of posts in the past on various methods of managing running line and today we present you with a great write-up AND video from our buddy George Cook with…
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Spey Fishing from a Boat
We really love working our way down a run on foot, swinging flies, and catching big fish like king salmon on spey rods. Who wouldn’t, right? At Alaska West, we’re really lucky in that our fishery is about as perfect as it gets for swinging flies – long, lazy, low gradient runs made up of big…
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The Single-Hand Spey Revolution
Most of the time, when people hear the words ‘spey casting,’ they immediately think of two-handed rods. Heck, we refer to two-handed fly rods as ‘spey rods’ for a reason! However, it’s important to note that by definition spey casting is a style of fly casting, one that can be performed by both two-handed “spey”…
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The Lady Caroline – Tying Instructions
A couple weeks back we put together a step by step on how to tie the Colburn Special, a traditional hairwing pattern for salmon and steelhead. Traditional salmon flies are no less productive than they were 100 years ago, and more and more anglers these days are finding the joy in not only tying, but…
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