RIO has just started shipping the Skagit Max, their newest Skagit-style shooting head. The Skagit Max replaces the Skagit Flight as RIO’s go-to floating head for most two-handed rods. We fished the Skagit Max for a week at BC West last month, so we’ll tell you what we thought about it on the Dean. We…
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Spey
5 Ways to Avoid Tangles in Your Running Line
One of the most frustrating things about fishing with any kind of shooting head system (spey casting Skagit heads comes to mind) is the tangling that inevitably, occasionally, happens in your running line. You make what was otherwise a beautiful cast, it stops suddenly way short of its target, you say some bad words, and…
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Sage 7126-4 METHOD Review – The Lightsaber
We recently spent a week at BC West fishing Sage’s new 7126-4 METHOD spey rod. We loved it, we named it, and now we’ll tell you why. History The Sage 7126-4 TCX has been one of the more popular steelhead rods around the Pacific Northwest over the past few years. Light but incredibly powerful, the…
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Adjusting the Swing
Fred Telleen has been guiding on the Kenai River since 1989. He also hosts groups at Alaska West during our king salmon fishing season. Fred put together some thoughts on gear and swing techniques after his trip this year – experienced anglers in particular are going to like today’s post. Make sure you check out…
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RIO GripShooter Review
It looks like RIO has just changed the spey running line game with their new GripShooter line. It’s running line that combines Slickshooter with a PVC coated ‘handling’ section at one end. More details shortly – let’s start with the background. Background Spey and switch anglers who prefer mono running lines like them for a…
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Jordan Sly’s Trout Swinging Rig
Jordan Sly is back today, this time with another information-packed post for our Expert Rig series. Jordan Sly’s Trout Swinging Rig Here at Alaska West our river is just asking to have a fly swung through the water column. Swinging flies for trout is not only fun, but it is also often very effective and…
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Try a Mono Running Line on Your Switch Rod
If you’ve read many of the posts about spey fishing on our blog, you know that a lot of Deneki-folk prefer mono running lines on our two-handed rods. There’s a lot of personal preference in running line choice for sure. Mono running lines have some drawbacks – notably a bit of a learning curve in…
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Sage ONE Switch Rod – 8116-4 Review
When we heard that the switch rods in Sage’s ONE lineup would be 11’6″ long, we got pretty excited, for two reasons. Rods north of 11′ tend to work a lot better for our ‘short spey’ applications of switch rods. Yeah, an 11′ rod might overhead cast better…but in our world we don’t overhead cast…
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Spey Fishing Etiquette
We’re calling today’s post ‘Spey fishing etiquette’ just because that’s a more manageable title than ‘swinging flies on foot working down a run etiquette.’ Our suggestions apply to any situation that matches that description – single or double-handed rod chasing any anadromous fish. And, in case it isn’t obvious, these rules apply to conditions in…
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Skagit vs. Scandi Heads and Keeping it Simple
Whitney Gould is a master spey caster and guide, and we’re really happy to have her back at Alaska West this summer. Thanks to Whitney for this great overview of spey line selection, and the best applications for Skagit and Scandi heads! Keeping it Simple The phone rings, and when I answer my Mom’s voice…
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