Posted on October 06 2011
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 she’s not going to bring it up, but she happens to be the reigning women’s world champion of spey casting – having won the Spey-O-Rama earlier this year. Not only did she win – she was the first woman ever at the Spey-O-Rama to make a cast of 140 feet in competition, and the first to break 500 feet in total. So yeah, Whitney really knows her way around a spey rod. Sorry if it sounds cocky, but the level of spey casting talent on our team at Alaska West is really pretty ridiculous.
Anyhow, if you were to bump into Whitney swinging for kings on any given gravel bar at Alaska West, chances are you’d find her fishing this rig.
The Summary
- Burkheimer 9135
- Airflo Skagit Compact, 660 grain
- Tibor Gulfstream
The Detail
- 30 pound dacron backing, attached to the spool with an arbor knot
- Guideline LRL .032″ running line attached to the backing with a double nail knot, coated with UV glue. “LRL is my favorite running line – it doesn’t kink and I can fish it in both cold and hot conditions.”
- Skagit Compact head looped to the running line using the factory loop on the back of the head and a hand-welded loop in the front end of the running line
- 10 feet of T-14 looped to the head using the factory loop on the head, and a loop on the back end of the T-14 created by folding over the T-14, tying a nail knot with 10 pound Maxima, and sealing the knot with UV glue
- 20 pound Maxima butt section attached to the front end of the T-14 wth a nail knot, sealed with UV glue. “I don’t like Albright knots in this application – I find that they slip.”
- 3 – 4 feet of 15 pound Maxima attached to the butt section using a loop to loop connection and double surgeon’s loops on both pieces
- Marabou tube flies, stacked as necessary (more on this below)
- Owner SSW #2 hook, tied on with a non-slip mono loop looped through the eye
The Commentary
- “I use 15 pound Maxima for my tippet because I don’t want to risk losing my head with 20 pound.”
- “The idea with the marabou tube flies is that we can create a large profile fly that’s still easy to cast. We stack multiple flies to create different sizes and color combinations, depending on river conditions. The bunny fur piece is used mostly when the river is high and dark. A yarn ball tied in with the marabou really flares the fly and gives that big profile.”
- “I add bullet weights above the tubes for extra depth. If I’m in a run where I want to really slow the fly down, as opposed to sinking it, I’ll go with a longer tip, like 15′ of T-14, instead of adding that bullet weight.”
More Expert Rigs