Take the time to do some fly-casting practice before you leave on your fishing adventure of a lifetime. You are traveling all the way to Alaska for some world-class wilderness fly-fishing. You are going to be there for just a week, maybe less. Don't waste your valuable time on the water brushing up on your casting skills when you could be fishing.

Take the small amount of time it requires to practice your fly-casting ahead of your trip. This need only require fifteen to thirty minutes per outing. Starting a month or so before your tip, dust off the fly rod and reel to make sure everything is in working order, including your casting arm. Take your rod out to an open area such as your yard or park. Water of course is the best surface to cast off of. String the rod up and tie a small piece of yarn onto the end of the leader. Place two or three targets, something to aim at such as a rock or stick or bucket, out about 40, 50, and 60 feet away from you.

The idea is not to necessarily to hit these targets, just try to get the yarn, your fly, close. Your practice session should start out by just picking the line up and putting it back down. Make a cast behind you then letting it float to the ground in front of you as you complete your forward cast.

Once you have a feel of the rod, move on to false casting. Keep the line in the air making successive back and forward casting strokes. Make sure that you wait for the line to straighten out behind you before you start your forward cast. You are trying to form a nice smooth loop in your line as it rolls out in front of you. You can do 100 or more false casts in five minutes. That's a lot of casting.

Fly casting class

As you false cast start moving your fly towards each of the targets. Every few false casts go ahead and make a cast at the various targets at the different distances. Practice picking the line up, take a few false casts and then casting at the next target. Do this every Saturday afternoon for fifteen to thirty minutes the month before you head out to go fishing in Alaska. I guaranty you will be more at ease with your casting and experience more productive fishing action right from the start. In general, the better you cast the more fish you will catch. Practice your casting ahead of time and it will pay off.

Reel Wilderness Adventures offers fly-casting instruction to anyone wishing to learn or improve his or her fly-casting skills. We have enjoyed teaching the great fun of fly-casting and fly-fishing to many.

Get your equipment organized before you go. Get your fly boxes organized. Put dry flies in their own fly box. Do the same for your nymphs, streamers, Salmon flies, egg patterns, etc. Do you have extra leaders and plenty of tippet material? Do you know where it is? How's your reel working? Is your fly line in good shape? How about your nippers or hemostats for removing hooks?

When you are traveling to and from fishing locations, take along a small gear bag with an extra jacket or sweater, more flies, tape measure, camera, film, sunscreen, hat, gloves, bug juice, candy bar, etc. Put in it what ever you think you may possibly need. This is a "just in case" bag. Take your gear bag with you whenever you leave camp for the day.

Always take your rain jacket with you every time you leave camp. If you want to get rained on, all you have to do is leave your rain jacket in camp when you go out for the day.

Take out all of your gear well ahead of your trip to take inventory of what needs to be replaced or repaired. How are your waders? Do they leak? Do they still fit? Take a look. Are your wading boots going to make it through another season?

Check your gear out ahead of your trip. Organize your gear so you have easy access to it when you need it. If you do these few things before hand you will be able to spend your time enjoying the great fishing and beautiful scenery of Alaska instead of looking for out of place equipment.

Relax! Enjoy yourself! You're in Alaska, look up, check out the scenery. Slow down you move too fast. If you find that you are catching too many fish or not; take a break, take a picture, have a snack, change your fly, check your leader, take another cast. Smile, you're fishing in Alaska.

Please call us toll free at: 1-800-726-8323 or contact us via email at: reel@aloha.net with any questions you have concerning booking dates, equipment information, or if you just want to talk about Alaska fishing. We look forward to hearing from you and meeting you in Alaska.