Meet Your Guide
Dominick Phillips -
Owner & Head Guide
Alaska was always the plan. Dom just had to wait for the opening.
Dominick grew up in rural Pennsylvania, the son of a man who worked in a fly shop and was known for tying production flies, scouting creeks ahead of clients, and fishing alongside legends like Joe Humphreys, Lefty Kreh, and Bob Clouser. (Fun fact: his dad once helped President Jimmy Carter catch a fish.) That education came downstream to Dom early.
He was officially hooked when his dad took him and his brother out to learn the roll cast. Dom was seven years old. He watched the trout rise around him, locked onto light tan mayflies drifting in the film, and he watched every spinner, every expensive lure, every bait in the box fail to pull a single fish off those tiny insects. Only a fly could do that. He went home and started tying.
For years afterward, Alaska sat on the horizon while life kept him in Pennsylvania — chemistry work, construction, the kind of grinding in-between time that makes a person more certain, not less, about what they actually want. He spent that decade-plus as a trout bum, traveling for whatever fishery was running best, sleeping in his car or stream-side, waiting for legal light. He helped fish biology departments with studies in college. He taught and coached strangers stream-side for over a decade before guiding was ever a business. When the Juneau opportunity finally came, Dom didn't negotiate the terms. He took a pay cut, packed his car, and drove north. He wasn't looking for a safety net. He was looking for fish.
Learning the Water from the Inside Out
Dom's first job in Juneau was at DIPAC — the Douglas Island Pink and Chum hatchery — where he spent a year raising Chum, Coho, and King salmon for sport fisheries and population maintenance. Most fishing guides learn fish from the outside. Dom chose to learn from the inside.
That year gave him more than fish knowledge. It gave him fluency in why fish do what they do: why they run a certain way, what attracts them, what spooks them, how to read whether a fish is stressed, hungry, moving with purpose, or locked onto something specific. That fluency underpins how he guides today.
A Fly Tier Who Guides
Dom has been tying flies for as long as he's been fishing them. He grew up tying for trout, bass, and panfish, and the tying expanded wherever the fishing took him — out of a car trunk, off a kayak, under a shelter he built to stretch more time on the water, in whatever motel room he and his buddies could afford. The patterns changed. The habit didn't.
His go-to patterns in Juneau are Craft Fur Clousers and Woolly Bugger variants. The fish in Southeast Alaska run highly cannibalistic, and both patterns play into that. He reads the water, reads the fish, and adjusts color and profile until something connects. Every fly used on a Dialed Outdoor trip is tied by him — not ordered in bulk, not pulled from a shop bin. His own tying, matched to the conditions of that specific day.
He's taught tying to others over the years and helped people get into the craft. Never worked in a shop — just spent a lot of money in them. For a look at how he ties and fishes, his YouTube channel Dialed Outdoor has tutorials and trip footage from Juneau waters.
Why Wade Wishing?
Why Juneau?
Dialed Outdoor runs wade-based trips — streams, beaches, and saltwater estuaries — because that's where some of Southeast Alaska's most interesting fishing actually happens.
Dolly Varden, sea-run cutthroat trout, starry flounder: species that don't show up on offshore charter reports and don't require a long boat ride to reach. You're fishing within minutes of arrival. No vessel logistics, no offshore weather, no seasickness.
Dom's favorite target says a lot about his approach: Dolly Varden. Aggressive, not picky, growing anywhere from a few inches to over 30, and built to fight hard for their size. They're not glamorous. They're just reliably excellent fish to catch, and they're here.
Groups are capped at four, one party at a time. The honest origin of that cap is that it's what fits in the truck — but the effect is that every trip runs like a day fishing with friends rather than strangers. No mixed bookings, no one in the truck who'd rather be somewhere else.
Spinning rods are available for clients who don't fly fish. The focus is fly fishing, but the goal is that everyone catches fish.
On the Water
Dom spent over a decade teaching and coaching strangers stream-side before Dialed Outdoor existed — helping people read water, fix their cast, understand what the fish were doing — long before guiding was a paying job. He fishes constantly outside of work.
His approach with clients is simple: it's your trip, and he's there to help. With beginners, he stays close until they're comfortable and building confidence. With experienced anglers, he gives them room and shows up when they need a fly changed, a knot tied, or a fish landed. He talks on the water — makes observations, offers adjustments, reads conditions out loud. Clients tend to leave knowing more than when they arrived.
Every day on the water presents its own problem. Fish are either cooperative or they aren't, and when they aren't, Dom keeps moving — new spots, new patterns, new approaches — until something works or time runs out. He scouts before trips, pre-fishes water, and treats conditions honestly. He sets realistic expectations before every trip and explains what happened afterward, whether it was a great day or a slow one. He's a guide, not a guarantee.
What clients come back saying, more than anything, is that Dominick is patient, a good teacher, and that he genuinely cares — not just about the fishing, but about the people. That part isn't a service offering. It's just how he's built.
Every trip Dialed Outdoor runs is guided personally by Dominick. Pick your trip type and check availability.
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