Jeff Hickman is back on our blog today with a very simple but incredibly important spey fishing tip. Don’t Cast Too Far. For some reason, people equate spey rods to long casts. Sure you can cast a spey rod far but that is not the main advantage of using one. Much of the time if…
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Spey
Whitney Gould’s King Rig
We’ve got another post in our Expert Rig series today – in which we profile, in detail, how various expert anglers set up their gear to chase a particular species in a particular place. We’re really proud to have Whitney Gould on our guide team at Alaska West. If you don’t ask her about it…
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Traveling with Spey Rods
Tom Larimer just got back from hosting a week at BC West on the Dean River. Since spey rods and travel were at the top of his mind, he put together some tips for us those two topics. Thanks Tom. Spey Rods and Bazuka Tubes Traveling with two-handed rods and fishing gear from the “Lower…
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Deneki Video Roundup
We start today with a special note to the more than 4,000 of you who read our posts in newsletter format. First – thanks for subscribing! Second – today you’re going to want to click here to view this post on our web site. It’s mainly made up of embedded videos that you won’t see…
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Rotate Your Rod – Shooting Line
Last week we passed on a tip related to making longer spey casts with shooting heads – holding your loops in your top hand. For those of you who like to huck, we’re following that up today with another tidbit that helps with easier casts at longer distances. This one comes from the world of…
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Pinch Loops in Your Top Hand
Your fearless editor spent last week fishing two-handed rods for steelhead and chinook salmon at BC West on the Dean River. We had a stellar group of folks at the lodge, including Michael White, Simms and Idylwilde rep for the Southern Rockies. Whitey gave up another nice spey casting tip during the week, and we…
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Sage Rods for the Dean
Earlier this week we heard from a guest who’s booked to chase steelhead with us at BC West on the Dean this summer. He said he’s got a bunch of Sage spey rods, and he wanted to know which he should bring along. In the course of that conversation, we realized that we’ve written reviews…
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Sage TCX Switch Rod Review
Last year at IFTD we told you about Sage’s new line of TCX switch rods. We’ve finally gotten enough time in fishing one that we feel competent to write up a review. The past few weeks we fished the 8119-4 TCX a whole bunch at Alaska West, and guess what – we’re in love. About…
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Try Some Rubber Tape!
At Alaska West and BC West, lots of our anglers fish spey rods. Most of the time we’re spey casting, we’re using Skagit-style heads. Skagit heads require running line between the head and the backing, and for easy casting and line handling, lots of folks prefer using mono running lines. One problem with mono running…
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Spey Casting and Hand Position
Brian Niska’s series of spey casting tips continues today, with some great discussion on hand position. This is one of our favorites! Reduce Fatigue and Increase Speycasting Performance with Proper Hand Position Proper hand position will enable you to utilize the larger joints to develop power for the speycast, thereby reducing fatigue and increasing casting…
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