Kodiak Commando

I am planning on tying some bead head woolybuggers in various colors. Some common colors and some secret color combos . These are great coho flies.

I think we can all agree that all the factors of a reel are important. For me the most important thing is a good smooth solid drag when fighting any salmon whether it's pinks and reds on my 5 wieght, silvers and chums on my 9 or kings on my 9 or 10. You can get away with a decent drag for salmon in small rivers in alaska or great lakes tribs but nothing short of excellent will work for a fresh salmon especially kings or chums in the open ocean or lake close to the ocean. I have to say i like the screaming reel myself, it sounds good to me! I also have to say the second most important thing is that my reel is machined, they are just more durable. I also have to say i prefer large arbor reels, and if you get the right one you can hold plenty of backing. My 9 wieght reel has a 250 yards of backing on it and picks up line reel fast. This is a big plus when a big salmon takes out 200 yards of line because the faster you can reel them in the less time the fish has to get off.

I probably tie an average of 20 flies a week for the whole year but in the off season especially january or febuary i may whip out 100 flies per week.

I have tied with those hooks and beaded with them too and also have no complaints especially for the price you paid.

I'm in if anyone wants to talk.

While on the subject of weed free flies i tie them a lot even when i am not fishing in weeds. I have found when driting a fly with a heavy mono weed guard through lots of fish such as salmon the hook has a harder time snagging fish and when you do the usually come off.

QUOTE Nah, it's in "Dweebish". I've had a good education on it. Reminds me of another outdoors forum where some of us younger really computer savy people aka dweebs started posts containing binary code just to piss some of the not so dweebish members off.

It's 8:25 eastern and i am on now if anyone wants to talk.

I'm in the chat room right now if anyone wants to chat.

Man oh man it was good to get out fishing today because i have not been out for a week and a half! Any way i went fishing for pinks salmon at the buskin river which is a 8 mile long river that comes out of a big lake, the river is about 20 feet wide on average and gets about 80, 000 pinks a year and last year it got 120,000 pinks. It's quite a site to see a river that small clogged with 10,00 4 to 8 pounds salmon per mile :shocked: I went to my favorite hole and one of the few river spots i enjoy because most of the pinks are still chrome and because buskin fish are big, about 4 pound average with plenty of 5 to 8 pounders. The river was real low so i had to be sneaky and i just dead drifted a clauser and watch 12 fish in an hour come and hit it. I was setting the hook purely on sight, no feel involved. Because the fish were still chrome they had plenty of power for my 5 weight especially 3 fish that took me into my backing which is vere impressive since they don't have much water to work with. After the last fish a guy with a camer notified a bear was coming. So i left the river but took some pictures of the bear that i have seen a lot. Unfortunately for the bear it's getting way to used to people so it may be a dead bear soon. All the Grayish blue spots on the far side of the river are pink salmon A nice chrome female that took me into my backing The bear fishing The bear with a fish he caught

Welcome AK, hope you enjoy yourself here. Always great to see someone else from alaska This is a great place to learn about fly tying including from some great alaskans such as Carlin and Carl. BTW, what part of alaska are you from?

Well it varies for me with species and location but there is a go to fly for every situation. All 5 specific salmon in the ocean- Chartruese and white clauser All Salmon in lakes- Beadhead woolbugger Pinks, Chums, Silvers and kings in rivers-Pink Bunny Fly Reds in rivers-Glo bug River bows-Glo bug or flesh fly Lake Bows-Olive woolybugger Dollies in ocean-Clauser Dollies in lakes-Pink revolution Steelhead-Pink revolution

QUOTE Maby this was just Canada getting even Canada was upset at TB, Steeldrifter and me for the respones we made to the canada day topic!

QUOTE Sorry KC, but blind casting your way down a pool is about as artless as you can get. Salmon fishing is not nearly as difficult as dryfly fishing a spring creek for Browns or sight fishing the flats for Permit. I agree that most salmon fishing is not as "Glamorous" and difficult as the type of fishing you mentioned but make no mistake about it TB you can't say salmon fishing takes no skill especially after fishing once for one species. Is most salmon fishing as difficult or artful as the ones you mentioned, absolutely not but i think saying it takes no skill whatsoever is going a bit far! And trust me there are exeptions. Not all salmon fishing TB requires drifting down a pool, in alaska and especially kodiak you can also fly fish in the ocean and lake. The ocean can require a lot of skill for species such as chums at low tide where it's exactly like fishing for bonefish. Casts of at least 70 feet with delicate casts are needed and those chums will be just as spooky as bonefish! Lake fishing for salmon also takes as much skill as lake fishing for trout. By far the biggest exeption is red salmon. I used to live in utah and fished for all sorts of trout and used to think browns were the hardest coldwater fish to catch, and yes i did dry fly fish for them in spring creeks. While the techniques to catch reds are not as glamorous as dry fly fishing there is no doubt in my mind they are the most difficult fish to catch. I have fished for bows, cutts, steelhead, brookies and browns all over the west and quite frankly reds are the most difficult by a mile!

You should definetley be a writer TB! As for salmon fishing taking no skill i will have to disagree but i am not a purist by any means. One thing i do know is i have a friend on kodiak who used to live in canada and has told me that Atlantics in his experience are the second easiest salmon to catch, only pink salmon are easier and if atlantics are anywhere near pinks then you are right on because pinks are too easy to catch in many situations. However the other 4 species to take some skill and flies do matter. I have had many experences river fishing for reds, chums, kings and silvers where one fly will not work with a perfect drift and another fly will have fish bolting 10 feet away to slam it. Of course i also fish lakes for kings, silvers and reds where there is no drift and the fly matters even more. Lastly the question you must ask yourself is if salmon fishing takes no skill and all you need is a good drift then why do so many salmon especially red salmon get snagged!? Obviously if it were that easy then no one would snag salmon but the fact that so many people can be driven to snag shows that skill and sometime a lot of skill is needed for salmon, at least the four pacific salmon i mentioned.

I have at least 1 box for each of the following Red salmon Pink salmon King salmon silver salmon chum salmon Dolly varden Rainbow trout Pike Grayling Halibut Of course i have way more flies than these boxes could hold , i am sure this is true witha all of the other fly tying nuts!

QUOTE this is the chatroom never has any one in it!!! I was on a second ago when you were on and you wouldn't respond to me

With all Seriousness canada has great fishing and great people. Unfortunately i hate canadas goverment, there is no balance it's all radical liberals.

What country has several people a year charged with drunk driving in a zamboni!

How come no one ever is on saturday?

I am currently an unemployed fishin bum but this fall i will be leaving and going to Maryland to enter the merchant marines.

Praise the lord! I completely agree, with all the thread brands and different sizing systems it became very confusing what to get. I am glad there will be a universal sizing system now

I don't use many different flies for bows up here all you need is some leech, sculpin, egg and flesh patterns. Salmon are a different stoy in freshwater. The salmon don't feed in freshwater so many of the flies are attractor patterns for reasons know and unknown some flies work one day and not the other. There are mainstays like the egg sucking leech or bunny fly that consistantly work but there are other flies that i tie that work once a week or even once a year. I had one fly that caught me 30 chrome silver salmon one day and it never worked again for two years but i still kept it around just in case and sure enough one day it caught me 25 silver salmon, fishing, go figure Because of this i usually carry at least 4 boxes chuck full of different attractor patterns.

None of the above for me. I really like the cabelas hooks, they are just as sharp and durable as the tiemcos i used to use and are cheaper.

I use stike indicators a lot and find it is more effective than watching your line in many situations. I especially like using them in slow water for salmon especially reds. The problem with just watching your line is you can't regulate depth and when salmon are finnicky they will only hit a fly thats drifting at their level. I try to use the indicator to keep the fly at one level. You will have to adjust it from hole to hole but if it helps catch more fish it shouldn't bother you.