Best fishing tackle for Alaska fishing adventures is carefully selected to match the diverse fish species and challenging conditions found in the state’s rugged wilderness. These selections are among the favorites chosen by the editors at Fish Alaska.

Best Fishing Tackle

Best Fishing Tackle

xBnR Tackle BurrBeads

bnrtackle.com

BurrBeads are a new take on BnR’s wildly effective Soft Beads. They’re spikey, providing a different look that could be effective in heavily pressured fisheries. According to BnR, the spikes also provide a unique bounce off river structure. They come in two sizes: a 12.5 mm core with spikes that increase the overall profile to 16.5 mm, and a 15 mm core with spikes that increase the profile to 21 mm. The spikes also seem to increase translucence, especially in the clear color schemes like red and orange.

Best Fishing Tackle

Silver Horde 6 ½” Canadian

silverhorde.com

If you ever find yourself in a situation where salmon (or halibut, for that matter) are feeding on large herring, this spoon just might be the ticket. Originally designed for commercial fishing, the Canadian comes with heavy-duty welded rings on each end, a large, quality barrel swivel at the line end, and a large Siwash hook. It comes in smooth and hammered finishes, and in lots of colors including Glo/UV Herring Aide, UV Cop Car, and UV Purple Haze.

Silver Horde Stubby Dodger

Best Fishing Tacklesilverhorde.com

Dodgers have been around forever. The Silver Horde Stubby Dodger is 2.6” wide by 6” long. To put this in perspective, a standard size 1 dodger is 2.5” wide x 8” long. This equates to similar action, but a little less drag in the water. It’s available in a ton of colors including glow and UV. The Stubby Dodger is effective for silvers and kings at slow trolling speeds. It imparts action to an Ace Hi Fly, spoon, or herring, as long as leader length isn’t excessive. We think the Stubby Dodger will work very well pulling small hoochies for sockeye and chums in the salt, too, but haven’t been able to verify this yet.

Best Fishing Tackle

Storm Wiggle Wart

purefishing.com

The Wiggle Wart has been around forever. It is one of the most effective salmon lures there is for fishing in rivers. Whether forward trolled, backtrolled, or cast and retrieved, it’s consistently effective. The standard Wiggle Wart is 2” long and weighs 3/8 ounce. We used this plug for coho this year and the V 090 red herringbone, V 175 metallic purple/purple herringbone, and the V 074 Hot Tiger were all effective, either trolled or cast and retrieved. Though the Wiggle Wart comes from the factory with 2 treble hooks, we generally remove the treble hooks and replace the belly hook with a 4-bead-chain swivel and a size 1/0 Siwash hook as shown in the photo.

Best Fishing Tackle

Chrome Junkies 360 Flash Release

chromejunkies.com

Editor George Krumm has tried all the different flasher releases that are commercially made, and also makes his own homemade flasher releases. He says the Chrome Junkies 360 Flash Release is the best commercially made flasher release he’s used. It’s simple, creates little drag to deaden the flasher action, reliably releases, is super easy to reset, and allows you to quickly change out a flasher for a different one. It’s made in two models: one for Pro-Troll flashers, and one for Shortbus Super Series Flashers.

Best Fishing Tackle

Pro-Troll E-plug Scent Dispenser

protroll.com

The name of this lure is a little misleading. Yes, it dispenses scent, but it’s a lure—not just a scent device. This is the newest clamshell-type lure designed to be stuffed with canned tuna, chopped up baitfish, or other mixtures. When loaded, you can fish it for 45 minutes or so before you should reload it with bait. It has Pro-Troll’s patented E-chip built in and comes in several colors. In our opinion, it fishes best behind a Pro-Troll ProChip 11” flasher. The E-plug comes in 2” and 3” versions. We trolled this lure for Chinook and had good success filling the lure with canned tuna in oil with various Pro-Cure bait oils added.

Best Fishing Tackle

Panther Martin Inline Swivel, Spotted Yellow, 1/4-ounce

panthermartin.com

When we first saw these, we immediately saw the value and wondered why no one else ever built a spinner this way. The swivel is actually built into the spinner shaft. This results in a very clean spinner with no snaps (that make the lure look bigger than intended). Once we fished the lure, one thing we immediately noted is that it doesn’t take much current to get it to spin, and we like that. Using the Sea Eagle Fish Skiff 16, we trolled this spinner in the saltwater for cutthroat trout and connected with some quality fish, the biggest of which topped 18 inches. We trolled several different brand spinners, and a variety of sizes and patterns, and this one produced the best on sea-run cutts during the three-day trip. Panther Martin’s Inline Swivel product line includes several models, and are available in 1/16-, 1/8- and 1/4-ounce options.

Stu’s Chinook Intruder from Aqua Flies

Best Fishing Tackleaquaflies.com

If you’re looking for a huge-profile fly for fishing for Chinook in rivers, you can’t go wrong with Stu’s Chinook Intruder from Aqua Flies. Sometimes it’s better to buy than tie, and if it takes you 45 minutes to tie an Intruder, such could be the case with you. Stu’s Chinook Intruder is a 4-inch-long tube fly with a cone head and comes with a size 1/0 hook. It’s available in 7 colors. Fair warning: This fly really does maintain a big profile in the water. As such, it is very water-resistant and harder to cast than more streamlined flies. Your 8-weight switch rod will struggle mightily to cast Stu’s Chinook Intruder, but your 9- and 10-weight Spey rods should be able to launch this big fly with a suitable sink-tip.

Best Fishing Tackle

Mustad Big Gun Siwash Hook 1X Fine

mustad-fishing.com

This hook is great for replacing treble hooks, dull hooks, or poor-quality hooks on your lures. This open-eye hook meets all 7 of Dr. Francis Estalilla’s requirements for a good, single hook for plugs such as Kwikfish and Mag Lips. Mustad’s Black Nickel finish is 4 times as rust resistant as traditional Black Nickel. This hook is exceptionally sharp, and a great design that works well barbed or barbless. It has a large eye which provides the hook with a lot of freedom of movement. Consider it not only for plugs, but also spoons and spinners in the appropriate sizes. Editor George Krumm comments that on some days, he’s convinced this hook is a better plug hook and trolling-spoon hook than the venerable Gamakatsu BRB Open Eye hook. Pretty strong words…

Best Fishing Tackle

Silver Horde Ace Hi Needlefish Fly

silverhorde.com

The Silver Horde Ace Hi Fly has been a long-time producer and is a reliable choice for nailing kings and silvers on the troll. It comes in a variety of patterns, many of which include Silver Horde’s Glow or Ultra Violet treatments. In addition to the standard 4.5-inch body, you can purchase a pre-rigged option, as well as a needlefish pattern option and a smaller Ace Hi Fly Junior model. We tested the needlefish version in Glow/UV Herring Aide pattern and put the smack down on kings and silvers from various saltwater ports. Needlefish (AKA candlefish, AKA sand lance) are a popular food source for Alaska salmon, so it makes sense that this slimmer-profile lure would smash it. Our salmon trolling kit always includes Silver Horde Kingfisher spoons, Coho Killer spoons and Ace Hi Flies.

Best Fishing Tackle

BnR Tackle Hover Fishing Weight Pack

bnrtackle.com

This handy pack includes popular weight sizes and terminal tackle for hover fishing. This technique is very popular and effective for Chinook and coho in the Pacific Northwest and we can see it eventually migrating north to Alaska. BnR Tackle recently acquired Dave’s Tangle Free, and this pack includes Dave’s Tangle Free Steel Weights (4 each of 2 ounce, 2.5 ounce and 3 ounce) as well as barrel swivels, beads, duo-lock snaps and EZ Sliders. These rubber-coated weights can also be used in other applications. The steel weights are environmentally friendly, and we landed numerous Chinook this summer using the items in BnR Tackle’s Hover Pack.

Best Fishing Tackle

Nauti Tackle Pro Willow Hoochie Spinner

mrshurcure.com

This spinner is designed to be trolled, with or without a flasher in front of it. Though available in several colors, we used the one with the hot-pink hoochie and pink-on-white size 5 blade. The spinner comes with a size 2/0 treble and is effective for coho and kings in saltwater. Chums will take a whack at it, too, if they’re around.