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.

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

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!

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.