Hey folks, welcome back to spey rod talk. In part 1 we skimmed over some brief history regarding these unique fly rods and touched on some of the main differences between casting a single-handed rod and casting a spey rod. …

Many of the anglers who come to fish with us at our remote fly fishing camp on the Pacific coast of the Alaska Peninsula are returning guests. Most of them, although certainly not all, will make the long voyage north …

Many salmon will still be clad in their chrome plated ocean armor, and after having just returned from their trans Pacific voyage at sea they do not take kindly to having a fly dangled in their face.

The preferred rod weight is a 6 wt. This is an excellent choice especially when considering that you will in all likelihood be targeting larger salmon at some point during your upriver excursion.

Silver salmon are known among anglers as being especially good sport on light tackle. They are belligerent fighters once hooked, often exploding out of the water in a melee of acrobatic summersaults and line ripping runs.

We crawled forward, slowly moving against the ceaseless torrent of fish that swam en masse underneath the waters surface. It didn’t stop. The further we drove up into the creek, the more fish spooked and passed alongside the boat. Finally it reached its zenith.

We have made it through. Beneath the ceiling of clouds a world that few people will ever see with their own eyes is revealed in dramatic fashion, the Pacific coast of the Alaska Peninsula.

It is hard to express how much physical effort is expended fighting king salmon until you’ve experienced it for yourself. They are stubborn customers, making you fight a give and take game of inches when doing battle with them.

King salmon are incredibly powerful fish. Once you’ve hooked one, you’re in for it. Be ready to invest some time, blood and sweat when you cast a line to a pod of holding kings. They will take it all from you and more.

Before we dive into a conversation discussing the variables in different Dolly Varden populations, let’s resolve to answer an earlier posed question: are Dolly Varden and Arctic Char the same thing? The answer is no, they’re not.