Most Skagit-style spey setups these days involve a separate running line – the thinner diameter line behind the head that isn’t involved in casting, but allows mending and line control and a ‘handle’ for you to pinch when you’re swinging your fly. We’ve written quite a bit about running lines here on the Deneki blog….
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Spey
Whitney Gould’s Competition Rig
Last week, we ran a post congratulating our own Whitney Gould as she won the women’s division of this year’s Spey-O-Rama world spey casting competition.. again! Whitney won her fourth Spey-O-Rama title placing in six years after taking last year off to fish in Montana (the test of a true fish bum). We’re super proud…
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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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All About Spey Rigging
We make sure to pick the brains of the many guests who frequent our lodges on what topics they would like to see most on the blog. Whether in Alaska or the Bahamas, a reoccurring request is a more comprehensive explanation of spey gear. Modern rods, lines, tips and so on are constantly evolving and…
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5 Ways to Control the Speed of Your Swing
When swinging for anadramous species like king salmon or steelhead, more often than not, the slower the swing the better. As long as it is moving just enough to suggest life in your fly, odds are you are in the game. However, from time to time, increasing the speed of your swing can be just…
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Steelheading Simplified
Today we have a few steelheading tips coming at you from our own Kara Knight. Kara is our lodge manager at B.C. West on the Dean River and knows a thing or two about swinging for steelhead. We asked Kara for a few tips she’s picked up from her time on the Dean that might…
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Starting Short
An angler fishes the near water first, in Slide Run, on the Dean River, at BC West. More Pictures from BC West Standoff at Tidewater 3 Reasons We Love This Picture Load
RIO Skagit iMOW Tips
RIO’s Skagit MOW Tips have been hugely successful since they launched three years ago, and for good reason. By combining floating and sinking sections of various lengths in sets of 10 foot tips, they allow anglers to fish at different depths, while maintaining the same overall length in their head/tip system. This has simplified things…
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RIO Skagit iShort Heads
If you follow the progression of Skagit-style spey lines on our blog at all, you know that we’ve been pretty excited lately about two trends – the development of better shorter heads, and the development of intermediate density Skagit heads. Short Heads, Intermediate Heads We like fishing modern short Skagit heads (like the RIO Max…
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