If you’re swinging wet flies in a rocky river like the Dean, your fly is occasionally going to hang up. Flies snagged on wood can be difficult or impossible to remove, but flies snagged on a rock can really frequently be freed without ever leaving your spot. The belly of your swinging fly line pulls…
Read More
swinging flies
Leader Length and Fly Weight
Today we continue our Alaska Guide Secrets series, in which you get the inside scoop direct from our guide crew at Alaska West. You’ve decided which fly to fish and maybe even which sinktip to use. Now you need to decide whether your leader should be 2 feet, 6 feet or 12 feet long. Got…
Read More
Bullet Weights, Part 2: Still Crittery
Last week we gave you a glimpse into the very non-traditional world of using bullet weights with your steelhead and salmon flies. Today, more details! Next time you’re at the vise setting strategy for the ultimate Alaska West or BC West fly program, consider tying a bunch of flies without any weight. Tying on plastic…
Read More
Bullet Weights, Part 1: The Ultimate in ‘Crittery’
Cri’tter’y – Western Alaskan adj. Shaky, unsure. Often enlightening. Always effective. Now that Skagitmaster 2’s Scott Howell virtually gave the anadromous world ‘permission’ to get all crazy Bassmaster with our flies when playing the weight game, we thought it was time to go public with the whole bullet weight thing, as well—but for a little different…
Read More
Swinging as a Team
When you and a buddy swing flies together through a piece of water, it really makes sense to fish as a team! Working together you’ll learn more about how the fish want the fly presented in a particular piece of water, and you’ll probably increase your catch rate too. Here are some basic principles to…
Read More
Cast, Step, Swing
We’re back with more steelhead fishing nuggets from Scott Baker-McGarva at BC West. This post contains the words “Jerry Wintle” and “Dean River” and that means that if you like steelhead, you should read it and learn! Cast, Step, Swing – Like Jerry Many, many moons ago, on my first trip to the legendary Dean…
Read More
Top 7 Alaska Fishing Tips
With our season at Alaska West right around the corner, we figured it was an excellent time to review our most popular posts with Alaska fishing tips on our blog. 7 seemed like a good number, and these have gotten the most visits in the lifetime of our humble little home on the web! Bead…
Read More
5 Ways to Catch More King Salmon
We’re already getting excited about the king salmon we’re going to be catching at Alaska West and BC West starting the second week of June. These are not your normal king fisheries – we’re swinging flies for hot chrome fish just a few miles for the salt, and that really turns our crank! Anyhow, we’ve…
Read More
Sculpin Fishing from Alaska to Chile
Trevor Covich is one of our senior guides in Alaska and Chile. He loves tying and fishing sculpin patterns and he’s darned good at both. He put together a great piece for us on sculpin fishing. Sculpin fishing is an extremely versatile way to fish, and oh by the way, a great way to select…
Read More
Swinging Flies – Cast, Then Step.
Cast, mend, swing fly, take a few steps downriver, repeat. That’s how you fish for steelhead, right? Not necessarily. Michael White stops by in video form today, straight from the Dean River, to tell us a bit about how he likes to present flies to steelhead. The basic idea – rather than stepping downriver after…
Read More