NW Pro-Guide Chris Vertopoulos of Chris V’s Guide Service – LIVE!

Get to know Professional Northwest Guide Chris Vertopoulos of Chris V’s Guide Service! Chris has been guiding for 30 years and has written numerous articles for NW magazines. He has also been involved with organizations like the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association (NSIA), The Association of NW Steelheaders and the North Coast Salmon & Steelhead Enhancement Fund to name a few.

https://www.chrisvsguideservice.com/

https://www.salmontroutsteelheader.com/
https://amatobooks.com/
https://www.glangler.com/

Hey everybody we’re back live again um last week we had Bob Reese on um it was a great time Bob’s a super nice guy and before we get started here I want to reiterate you know about how involved Bob is with nsia I mean he was just

Flying to DC couple days ago I think and uh always pushing more fish um maybe talk about that a little bit later but tonight we’ve got Chris for topis right here and he’s been guiding for 30 years about 30 years yeah just like Bob so it’s like the it’s like the 30y year

Club I don’t know is that like the Rockstar thing is that like 27 27 right but uh so Chris now you grew up in the Portland area right Vancouver Washington yeah Vancouver Washington and uh we’ve got some pretty cool pictures actually actually a lot of pictures that

I totally relate to cuz we’re we could be brothers fact I I think a couple of the guys in these photos I think I know who they are uh oh I mean possibly but maybe not but uh so let’s uh let’s let’s pop up some pictures here and uh see uh

Obviously that was a few years ago that was a couple years ago yeah that was uh I’m I’m steel Head fishing uh and that’s before I actually caught a steel head on the washugal river and um so that’s where I grew up in Southwest Washington so I fished the

Washugal the East for the North Fork of the Lewis and the col those are the rivers I started fishing so what high school did you I went to Fort Vancouver high school and graduated in 84 Fort Vancouver so maybe somebody’s watching right now that you went to school with

Oh maybe so were you were you the bully you know no I wasn’t the bully I was kind of I was the quiet kid actually probably more than anything well except in uh social studies class but that’s a whole another story yeah you know I I

Was totally ni to people too it’s like it’s like you treat people like you want to be treated and uh I might have hung out with some bullies sadly you know what do you do but uh so what let’s see this next shot this is pretty funny so you are so that that’s

Halloween um me and some buddies um you know dressed up like our our rock star F uh favorite group you know kiss and so that’s me with the uh drumsticks there I was a drummer you’re in the middle right yeah that’s me in the middle that’s what

We got Ace Freely in the back yep Peter Chris that’s me and then and then Simmons up front my buddy Nick you still fish with these guys um Nick does a little fishing I haven’t seen Jimmy in years it’s been a lot of years oh maybe

He’ll look you up maybe so so now this is the one that I swore I knew one of these guy I think that’s you on the right B right that’s me on the bottom right yeah that’s my dad right behind me he was our coach my dad was my soccer

Coach from age eight up until through high school oh is that your dad that’s my dad on the far right funny I thought the guy on his right was his son no that’s Randy Barker I I think I remember most of those guys names I mean the guy

Next to you is that a guy named Bo by there’s no bow the guy next to me I believe was if if you go back to the picture I think his name was Todd to yeah Todd Todd can’t remember his last name and Steve Shore next to him Brian Enix uh Dave

Steel and that was in that was in Vancouver now I’m kind of losing it a little bit yeah that was in Vancouver you know I saw that picture and immediately I thought like Shaky’s Pizza Smokey’s Pizza we used to go to Smokey’s Pizza yeah I remember the the stripes

And you know all that kind of fun stuff so now we’re at a lake here with a fly rod looks like that’s right yeah that’s on crane prair Reservoir with a a nice crane bow as we called them and um a couple years before that a buddy of mine

Took me on a guided trip with a a great fishing guide named Fred F and he worked out of dutes River Outfitters and we went out in his bass booat and we got in our float tubes and we um we fished with damsel fly nips these really cool little

Custom tied damel fly nips surface in the grass we used lines really long Tippets um and we stripped these things in and we caught nice rainbows really really nice you were using nymphs under the water just subsurface just under the surface yeah and so after learning crane

Prior to that I I had fish Crane Prairie only with power bait and lures but I kind of I grew up fly fishing too and and so I really wanted to learn to catch those nice rainbows and we got some brook trout and cocy doing it too you know the fly fly

Fishing is super effective for that kind of thing well it’s a buggy Lake and those fish know what bugs are you know and um hey give them what they want right how about how about you take the stone fly and just put it on a hook and

While it’s still I might have done that once or T I think everybody did that at Le once right or the or the split shot with some nightcrawlers and God Garden Hackle granted they probably swallow it and it’s not good but yeah that’s kind of where you start for the most part

Power bait that is um so this is cool so do you remember what year this is the Gold River that is the Gold River yeah so I’m looking at my that’s my first drift boat there and that I can see my sticker on it it says 95 okay and uh so

That was the year 95 I’m assuming so and it was February cuz I uh itched up my drift boat to my Toyota truck and I drove up to um Vancouver Nao actually drove up to Nimo put my truck trailer and boat on a ferry and we took the ferry over to

Twas swon fairy SW I think swon middle was the middle of the night no it wasn’t all day and I got to drive all the way to the northern tip of um Vancouver Island and crossed over Vancouver Island at Campbell River and went over to Gold

River and I we were talking lots and lots of hours of driving and I met uh Mike lvery and Dave champ there and Mike LA’s dad bud and we stayed in a a trailer uh on the Gold River for a few days and we fished for steel that’s down

On the lower River I think right trailer Camp well there was no other trailers around it was just us we just found a spot I think and we were there during an an ice storm and everything had frost and ice on it the whole time we were

There it was cold well the fact that you put your drift boat in that River I mean you’re crazy cuz uh I went up there too I don’t know if you remember the pepper corn Lodge that bridge but I remember reading about you guys there was a

Little Lodge like just above the I think it’s the first bridge and then there’s a helicopter hole there the lake hole golf the golf course but that river is very dangerous fast I mean unforgiving so that picture there there was a major rapid on the leftand side of

The river and we had to Ferry the boat around on a small side channel on the other side of that rock is this major scary rapid almost like a waterfall so Mike and and Dave and myself we had to you know drag the drift booat around

This channel to get it around this rapid did you have glove it under I not anymore G yeah but it was a very interesting trip and then one other thing I I really remember about the trip is you had to take we drifted the the

River a few days in a row and you had to take the boat out at what was called the the um um it’s a power paper mill the old paper at the bottom where where those monster trucks and you have to float out around a point and you’re in

The in what’s it uh n sound so we had to float out into the sand go and row around this point to this boat ramp that was at the the Old Paper Mill and I think it was closed down when we were there it was not operational anymore um but when we were

Rowing around around one afternoon these orcas came up here I am in my dripo Mike and Dave and you know many yards away where’s that photo I didn’t get a photo happened really fast so the the log the mill oh my gosh uh anytime you went and

Got in your track car whatever or you’re about to you would hear this like you’d hear this huge turbo coming down the road and these trucks like if you’ve ever seen trucks on mines the ones that don’t go on the road these weren’t quite that big but they were

Wider than a single Lane I mean you had to like get out of the way and they weren’t slowing down for nothing I mean you had to like I mean anyway that’s some wild country up there big blue trucks they were blue the mill wasn’t working when we were there it was I

Think it was like shut down okay one of the years I was there they were full on and and you had to be paying attention all the time and I mean it was like a monster coming down the road this I mean I can’t imagine it was probably like a

12 liter diesel or something but anyway cool stuff and and that that place is amazing middle of nowhere I mean talk about the boonies and try to just getting there is a chore and the water you know it’s called The Gold River you you see that when you get there the

Water is crystal clear and the rocks are kind of a goldish tinge there’s a greenish gold color it’s like amazing beautiful all right let’s let’s keep going we got a like a looks like a that’s a tiger musky yeah and uh many many years ago that’s back in the 90s um

Is that a lake up in Washington it’s a lake up in Washington called Mayfield Lake and uh they planted them in there and that was shortly a few years after they had planted them in there they planted in there to eat the um the pike minnow or squawfish as we used to call

Them and um so they they’re a a hybrid fish they tiger mus yeah they cannot reproduce and but they’re very voracious I was going to say have you ever seen Jurassic Park I have seen it mhm Never Say Never right I mean hey you give give life a chance and who knows

It’ll you know probably end up in the well probably r you in the somewhere they skap um somebody caught one in the W once it came because they planted them in mwin now and they come come over the Lewis River yeah I remember that off a

Dock I think it was I think you’re right I read about it maybe in your magazine H maybe yeah actually we got the big old I’m going to guess that’s Alaska no that’s that’s actually till m and that’s what fish used to look like in t Bay that would have been my second

Gu yeah that was uh Steve gruto’s dad caught that fish and he let me take a picture with it too I think it was 42 lbs yeah I was right in the ghost hole that was a nice fish hopefully we’ll see some more of those this hopefully

Someday they’re hard to come by now yeah and now I’m going to guess the last you’re right on that that’s like ke my first year on the keenai that’s a keenai river you one of the one of the tail tells on the Alaska salmon is the red

Meat starts to like bleed through their bodies because the meat is so red it’s something that has to do with the mineral content in the water up there those fish get a reddish color to them when they start turning and and you think this oh this fish is dark but it’s

Not it’s the meat is just literally come right in the o or from the ocean sea life and they got that red but it’s just cuz there’s their meat is so red that particular fish was a one of the more bright keenai fish you would catch you

Get some bright ones you get some real colored up ones often the really big ones were quite colored up yeah fun okay now I I know where I know where this is in fact either I took this or Robert Campbell took this shot and this is up in Alaska on the peninsula Southeast

Yeah that was uh one year us Vena we were up there one year here your brother uh yourself myself and and Robert and then I think this was the year before that actually this was uh clacker craft was was Bruce no Bruce wasn’t with us I’m trying to remember there or was

Steve was it Steve maybe it was Steve Steve you Steve corre Robert yeah but that that is that place is amazing I mean and it’s kind of not accessible anymore at least at the moment but literally you’re right next to the ocean um you got a river behind you and

Then a larger river that that River empties into and then a smaller River too the back yeah and then another Little River and and if you go out when the tide is just right um it just fills up you know when the fish can’t quite

Get over the sand and stuff and uh just fish after fish I mean it’s to the point where you got to go sit down and take a break break MH and lot of that and then you’re surrounded by these beautiful mountains I mean so the the penin or the

St Elias range I believe right behind us yeah and that area you feel like you’re on an island because like they barge everything in and out but you cannot physically go east the mountains are massive and and you go into Canada but uh you’re you’re totally isolated

Literally the roads town just kind of turn into gravel and and uh then disappear the only way to get there is by plane or boat yeah yeah so if you need a car or truck it has to come in by barge anyway a lot of Alaska like that I

Guess were you throwing poppers on that that was uh yeah on a a w as we call them yeah and it at certain time of the tide especially at the last couple hours of outgoing tide the wagon got good if but a lot of things had to come together

All the Sun the stars and had all line you got to have like 20 fish all huddled together and then that one that decides to oh man that was some fishing and then and and then you got to like wait like that one extra second cuz you see you

See you see this sub submarine behind it and then all of a sudden but you got to wait one extra second cuz if you do this yeah just comes right back how many years had you been going up there I want to say at least three or four times you

Know you know well Nick’s got a story I don’t know if I can totally share it anyway I can share part of it um he accidentally left I’ll give you the the G-rated version um anyway he got there first day they left their cooler out on

The porch you can figure you can start thinking about this so it starts getting dark and of course you know it’s the first day everybody’s having fun maybe drinking a few beers anyway and it goes out the door and literally the porch is like this like right where where we’re

Sitting you know Square it out pretty small and there’s a and there’s a bear head head in with the cooler up and and he looks at the bear and the bear looks at him and the bear just goes back into cooler and then I think they had to yell

At it and anyway it definitely did some serious damage to their meat Supply and and and long story short when they left they they well he took his clothes out into the bushes and threw them all over the place so they wanted to get back at

It a little bit so they they left it a little special thing when they left that’s all I can say but anyway the guys that go to Alaska probably know what I’m talking about or some of them do anyway okay let’s keep going all right um look at that steel head that’s

An you got to tell the story on that one so where is that so that’s on a North Coast stream I’m not going to tell you exactly which one it is we don’t need to name any yeah no names it’s no name Creek no name stream yeah and uh I had

Just received a an old Shimano banam reel in the mail that I had sent to a guy up in Siri BC named uh his business is called Timeless Shimano and he’ll take your old Shimano real like an old bam 2011 which I sent up to him and he totally revamps it

Turns it into like a race car he puts uh new halls and drags and stuff in it and it’s still year old Shimano banam does he change he impres he can’t change that very much but he’ll put a longer stroke handle on it which gives it a little bit faster

Retrieve so I just received this reel B uh from this guy and I was really excited about it so I spooled it up with line and and it was a trip with Robert my buddy Robert too and um we went steelhead fishing and the conditions

Were great and I’d got a small fish in the Run drift fish in a rag and um Robert was fishing just above me and then I hooked up on this fish here and uh we were right above uh a rapid it was a pretty good tail out and then a rapid

And rocks all on my left hand side and so I hook this big fish and Robert comes down he’s watching me and I’m fighting it you know and pulling on it and the fish decides to go over the rapid and I can’t downam downam go and I can’t chase

It good luck I can’t chase it because there’s a rock wall on my left and I’m like and it’s just spooling me you know it’s not stopping it’s a big fish it’s not a 20 pounder but it’s you know it’s 17 18 whatever and it’s just going and

I’m just watching all the line go off my newly revamped Shamano bam 201 you know 30y old 40-year-old reel and I’m like and Robert’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and he just going he just says try it and we knew what I was

Talking about so I put in freeze poool and stuck the rod tip in the water oh oh to keep it from rubbing just started dumping line off of it oh get rid of the tension I guess just so he or change the angle of the tension so I started

Dumping line off it I hate to stop you for a sec but that’s a huge thing to keep keep in mind when you have a fish taken off on you and just give it the line don’t give it because then he doesn’t know he’s hooked anymore and

He’ll stop any keep going sorry anyway so what happened was is this fish is Downstream from me you know probably 80 yards and now it’s got a belly of line below the fish and so it’s pulling that line from the other opposite angle so what happens is um start kind of reeling

Back in and the fish is slowly swimming back upstream and the darn thing swam back up right across from me up the rapid back across from me again so that’s essentially what you were doing and I’ve tried that Slackline it and I’ve tried that technique a handful of times and it you know

Probably eight out of 10 times it doesn’t work but a couple of times it did work and you have no you have no I mean that’s all you can do is just try it cuz otherwise just breaks off I mean more times than not I’ve let out dumped

Out line and the fish just keeps going and breaks me off but there’s one situation and you know going back to the gold I had a situation similar to that where I was in some like a fast really fast run with a nice little Edge right so of course like

I had a jig or something got right on the edge boom just gone just a rocket gone Downstream I start running and you know there’s Boulders like this on the bank and and literally as I’m falling on the rocks and and boom the line breaks all my Line’s gone totally spooled me and

I’m laying on the ground you know dejected I could I couldn’t even run fast those fish are hot on the gold oh it was just are Hot Fish there was nothing nothing I could do and it was a same situation it was going to turn into

A rock wall I was just chasing after trying to you know knowing you know boom anyway but that’s exciting that’s a memory that you don’t forget never forget yeah so this is you down at buoy 10 I’m no that’s actually Galia a buddy a buddy took that picture

And it turned out to be a decent picture so that’s just that’s just a cool shot that’s like you’re a Montana guide or something you I think I think he’s a professional photographer actually well he captured it yeah he got he used a filter or something to totally make

That look cool yeah that’s the marina and galdi so I think this next one is another steeled right that’s a oh yeah that’s a big uh North Coast Hatchery steel head you know there that was a big fish year we got a lot of big fish back

That year and that was a 21 pounder is that a client that you that’s a client yeah Bob cabal is his name I remember his name so what uh what were you fishing with on that one uh we got that one on um a yarne Yar a yarne and some

Easy eggs you know what easy eggs are those little latex rubber eggs yeah oh yeah I use those a lot I still use them can you can still buy them right somebody they’re kind of hard to find but um I have a good supply of them so

I’m probably set up but I I use them they work there’s a company that’s they did a spin-off on it it’s like the gooey Bob right well they’re they’re in a little chain actually in single eggs in a chain and you can break them off in

Twos or threes what have you and um they’re made of a different material than your typical plastic eggs and soft beads and stuff and and I want to say it’s got some latex in it or something but they’re extremely durable and they’re they’re strong and you can yeah

You can use them over and over again but there’s another kind of smaller or lesser known um thing about easy eggs that make them wonderful is because of the material they’re made of they absorb oils and scents oh and so you can put them in a container with some smelling

Jelly or what have you and they actually if you leave them a couple days you’ll see them swell up they swell up and absorb some of that scent so so it’s almost like a sponge it’s just but they’re a very extremely durable soft ache that’s what they are wow great

Stuff so we got another nice steel head here mhm is that the zipper lip River zipper lip River yeah it’s another I I stood in that spot and I think I hooked six steel head in or hooked four steel head in six casts I think in that one

Spot there that is a beautiful fish mhm that’s my better half over there that’s Heather so where is that so that’s up in Washington up on uh one of the Olympic Peninsula rivers and and I was fishing with doing some Trader trips with guide Joe super fisky

And uh I took uh Heather and I had just started dating then and took her that was our first fishing trip together oh really we caught some coo with with Joe so Joe is a very animated guy I don’t I haven’t seen him for years he used to

Come to the show sometimes is that where you met him at the show I believe so yeah I think it was at the show we just kind of started talking fishing and um talked about trading some fishing trips I’ll take him fishing he takes me fishing and he he lived in Washington

Yeah he was up in the Aberdine area yeah up on the South Peninsula a guy he was very animated I mean funny I mean funny guy funny guy love the fish lots of f bombs he’s famous for that bombs so who who is this that’s our uh 14 well now

She’s 14 that’s uh our 14-year-old Daughter Molly she was seven there in that picture that’s her first steel head and uh another great story that’s a nice fish it was um first week of December and we went down to the Wilson River you know they get a few early fish there

Still and I I I wasn’t going to start guiding till after Christmas but I wanted to get her out fishing and want to go fishing myself and so we go and just her and I put the drift booat in at Donaldson’s and uh got a bobber dog and

Set up just just like this and she she’s never caught a steel head she caught some coo salmon prior to this in trout of course and um put the rod together and I cast this setup over right as we put the boat in I cast the setup over

And I handed her to the rod we’re just kind of floating and I’m telling her okay so you want to watch that bobber and if the bobber shoots down just start reeling and she goes like this right away she goes I got one and I’m like she

Do she just got what I just gave you the talk just got a snag I mean it was immediate it literally immediately she did that and I’m like oh she’s just got a snake but then I hear all this splashing going on I turn around and there’s a steel head jumping wow that

Fish is that’s a really nice fish yeah you know it’s she’s small there so it looks like it’s bigger but it’s it’s about a seven pounder or so but um anyway we we ended up having to float down around the corner um to land that fish and through

Kind of a little riffle rapid kind of thing and and we come around the corner and the fish is going around the boat and it’s just you know I’m thinking she’s going to lose it but she held on and the fish is just jumping and flopping and she’s doing everything she

Can to reel and we pull around the corner and there’s Terry M anchored up there and his two guys are just standing there in the boat and they’re cheering her on and clapping it all and I pull the boat in and jump out grab the net

And net the fish and we shot it and they gave her a big round of applause and everything and she was so excited every kid should have that experience you know now I can’t get her to go fishing she’s just not interested in it right now cuz

She’s 14 yeah the fishing is not cool now parents aren’t cool they’re not till they’re like 20 something right that’s right so let so let’s check out the rig here M hit the hit the let me uh let me open the spool up here and there’s probably a

Hook right here cuz you got the bead yeah but uh I I think you were talking about this a little bit uh on outdoor GPS actually oh you watch that show I did and uh and and so you’ve got the loop knot right kind of where where you

Literally t almost like a dropper it’s just a overhand knot with a loop some people call it the nush knot um and it just works out really well for me I didn’t it wasn’t my idea it wasn’t my invention by any means but yeah but it’s

Very efficient and you can make a lot of these really fast really fast and the beauty of this is is if you’re a bead fisherman especially a soft bead fisherman one of your issues is that you know after hook said or after a few casts or whatever your bead always ends

Up sliding down to your hook but you want to keep that three-finger distance in there right well this way it almost never happens and because you’ve got a KN here and then to put a couple those are sequ little sequins there and that stops that darn bead from sliding over

Your bead stop or what have you and um now I’m not talking negative about the bead stop the bead Stop’s a great product that that Brandon from this is all personal preference type stuff but so I found a new place and you can put

And you can put that on here if you want and slide it down but this way it’s you’re not going to get any slippage there that’s that’s the beauty of that deal that’s a B&R soft bead right there so got enough slack down there bring your over here I’ve got um a stick

Weight I use stick weights and this is a u bowmax stick weight and I cover it up with heat shrink tubing that makes it super slick so you just you don’t lose much lead that way uh I can go sometimes on certain rivers that are less snaggy

Than others I can go all day without losing a sinker the only way I lose sinkers is if they cast in the trees fishing for squirrels yeah and and and and this this just naturally kind of wants to just pop out and over and you

Know what if it was to get stuck in a rock you just it just pulls right out it’s a super how many you maybe already said how many ounces is this um I don’t they don’t go by ounces they go by inches on the one and I believe that’s about that stick

Weight there is um 2/3 of an no it’s not 2/3 it’s a third of an ounce and then the bobber is probably and that’s a bow MAAC bobber there it’s one it’s a custom Bobber because I I like to Tinker with stuff and I’ve painted the

Bottom in this side the bottom side will always run down because I’ve weighted the bobber oh and then you used a t stop yeah so that’s where I use Brandon’s t- stop now just you know about 6 in above the sink okay you want to keep it there

I got well the reason for this is that when we snag up mhm when we snag up if we do often times we’ll break off the whole swivel snap leader the whole deal and then all if you don’t have this on there you’re going to lose your bobber

Too and you got to go chase your bobber down or just lose it the expense goes up and up and up here we go I put this t- stop on there the big one and now I don’t lose my Bobbers and and when you I

Break all that off and still not lose my you know the other thing and if you’re reefing on it like you know sometimes you you have your weight or something just slam right in and and destroy it I little gives a little soft softness I guess or it comes flying back and hits

You in the face the reason for me customizing these Bobbers and weighting them like I do I slide a piece of super thin pencil under there and then seal it back up paint the bottom gray it’s kind of a neutral color I my eyes aren’t as

Good as they used to be so I need more color up here to be able to see my Bott here’s my eyes you got put them back on so actually let’s go let’s go back to the hook then for a so we got that the t- stop you got a swivel split swivel

Right three-way kind of I don’t know if that the technical name on that one threeway threeway um so so on the hook we got all tangled up is this just you just got it looped right it’s just looped over yeah so so I don’t know if everybody can see that but literally

Like you can just take this hook well I guess I missed because I can’t see but literally it’s just you can take the hook off and put a hook on it’s just Loops off and so technically well I guess with the with these on it might be

Hard to like swap well you’d have to cut up here at the knot to change the go go the other direction but but if if anyway there’s a possibility if you change your rig up you can just slide the bead do change the size slide it up put the hook

Back on some some people are concerned about you know maybe while the hook is floating along that this slid I’ve never lost a hook so yeah no worries there never lost a hook stays and and and the loop it it keeps the hook like that you know like like it’s

Lined up straight you know if you were to tie just a like an improved clinch knot or something the problem with tying clinch knots you get the Cur PE at the end you know it it just doesn’t look as good to me yeah no so this is this is

Great and like and literally like like he was saying to make this you literally just go like this and you just tie a Rand a knot and like you’re putting a lead on and I leave a little tag on there too to help kind of stop the the

Sequence so leave about a little e inch tag on there and so I’ve done this too and it takes it takes some time to get the knot right at that you know the the three finger distance like sometimes you’ll end up here down here and I might

Cheat sometimes a little bit let it go but uh but yeah just super easy setup super quick and then you can put them together bang bang bang and uh that’s awesome so uh you got a 3,000 what 3000 Shimano it’s a new G lumus um IMX Pro

And for the rod you got how long it’s a uh 6 to 10 lb test Rod it’s a little on the lighter side but it’s got good good power to it 93 right uh it’s 933 so there you go I mean this is uh Chris and you know what we were just

Showing you is super effective I got a question uhoh oh we got a question what we got here no one on here but for people out there that are probably wondering what size hooks do you use for certain beads like do you change from a

Okay a size 12 to a 14 and then you’re like oh man I need to swap out a you know you know you can go smaller you know we used to go when we drift fish come back to the table camera when we used to drift fish we it really was

Important that your your the gap of your hook would um you could put your Corky or oy inside the Gap your hook so which meant we fished bigger uh hooks back then uh when we’re drift fishing but with beads because we’re doing the Hang back or the drop back or whatever you

Want to call it that three fingers between the bead and the and the hook you can get away with a smaller hook and um you’re still going to get what happens is is if the rivers coming this way here’s the fish’s mouth and the bead comes like this the current pushes

Always pushes that hook back here and then you feel the tension on your line your bobber goes down you pull on and you get them in the corner of the mouth almost every time it’s it’s a really super effective way of hooking fish that you don’t hook them in the mouth deep

You hook them on the side in the corner so you know the and the thing he was talking about at first was you know the reason that you would want the like corkies or okey Drifters to to fit in the hook is because when you’re fishing like that it’s little literally right

Here you’re blocking the gap of the hook with the so so if the fish bites this thing and that’s bigger than the hook G gape is it it’s just going to you know but but when the fish is biting here the hook size isn’t is I mean it is

Important but you know you don’t want a huge hook like a first so I use a lot of size one hooks to answer your question uh one works good um but I use some really big beads too I’m using some 20 mm beads so I’ll step up to a a one

Sometimes which seems like a big hook for for bead fishing but I use the soft beads and they’re they they’re a little more cushy so you can get away with I think a a a little bit smaller hook but yeah ones one o and twos are the primary

Sizes the hooks I use for the beads depending on the size of the bead so you were you were talking a little while actually when you got in here you were telling us about how uh Scott had contacted you about doing a section we’re talking 20 years ago this book

Yeah but uh so was that for the salmon cure or Ste that’s for a salmon cure um I think what had happened was Dan ponciano a good friend of mine had well actually Scott had contacted Dan ponciano and Dan said well I’m not much of an egg fisherman call Chris V and so

Scott called me up kind of cold called me and I started talking and he he used you know a cure that again I didn’t really invent um but somebody shared with me a long time ago and I we talked about it in this um uh in his book there

And it’s a great cure to this day oh yeah it’s a cure that I use to this day and you know and honestly you know Chris is guiding and and he wants something that’s effective that you can keep you know keeping your stuff in the water all

The time is huge you know I when I first started fishing with a friend of mine he was dri fishing I was jig fishing and literally I was hooking fish while he was retying way and leaders on breaking things off so this you know the bead

Fishing rig is very like you said anti snag this doesn’t get stuck very often so you know if you switch to I mean even if you switch to eggs that’s not necessarily going to snag up all the time but but this is just very effective and you’re always in the water and you

Don’t have to be spending all that time retying and somebody’s just waiting to get a run cast or what I mean don’t get me wrong you know stuff happens trees yeah trees happen trees happen yeah which is which is yeah it just happens so James you got any more questions back there no

Questions no questions so so Chris um your family moved here in the 60s um my mom is is from here and uh my dad is from the old country he’s from Greece MH and um in a roundabout way my mom and dad met uh here in Portland my dad was here on he

Was working on a ship and they met here I think it was in 1963 and um they ended up getting married uh my dad had a little trouble coming here because he was a Greek citizen but with some help from John F Kennedy uh my dad was able to come here

Wow uh with with his papers and everything and um then uh then I came along so do you so I was born here do you have any brothers or sisters I have a sister who’s just a little bit younger than I am yeah okay and she’s over in

Vancouver she’s a hair stylist doing very well was your dad a big fisherman not at all your mom not my mom nobody in my family fished so so you were kind of wandering off fishing these places well the to keep the sh somewhat short I

Found when I was about 7 years old I found a fishing rod in my grandmother’s garage out rural past Vancouver and she said take it it was your uncle’s he never used it and so I took it and I just I wanted to go fishing and but I

Had no no um experience doing it my dad had no experience doing it my grandpa had no experience doing it I had no influence what about your buddies your friends well no they weren’t we rode motocross bikes but we weren’t but I wanted to go fishing and so my dad was

Great about taking me fishing on the weekends and he would almost every weekend if we didn’t have soccer practice or soccer games or whatever going my dad would take me out to the washugal the lacus lake um Battleground Lake uh the Lewis River wherever and he’d sit in the car and read the

Newspaper while I fished yeah he was really good about taking me in fact I was on um laus Lake fishing out of my little vinyl raft when Mount St Helens blew on May 18th 198 oh wow you pretty close closer to it but it blew to the

North so and I was to the South but I remember seeing the plume of smoke over the hill yeah that was H over the hillside there and my dad’s waving at me come in come in and he got all worried cuz he was listening on the r car radio

What was going on he said we got to go home you know volcano just blew its top Iceland I mean massive this isn’t like a little this was I I don’t it’s not even a volcano it’s a fissure in in on a peninsula that’s like 2 miles long that’s the

Whole fissure is erupting it wants to be a volcano tring turning into a volcano but not in our lifetime wow that’s crazy so know there’s some other cool stuff actually actually you know I need to bring up the fact that you know Chris has been super involved with all the

Northwest groups um he he’s the nsia get togethers all the time he does the rondevo I don’t know how long have you been doing that for 25 years at least yeah so do you run a boat I guide in the Rendevous but I’m also on the the board

Of the North Coast S Steel Hood enhancement fund which puts on the Rond and I’ve been on the board with with the guys Jack Smith and Tim morz and all them for you know over 12 years you know for a long time yeah so did you ever

Work with the steel headers or yeah I was a member of the steel headers I’ve um various chapters back before I even started guiding uh I I donate trips to them you know do things for them advocate for them on occasion too yeah yeah and I and every time I’m at some

Event Chris is there I’m pretty social huh no it it’s a good thing you know to be involved with the with the different groups in your area so I was just uh talking to the board members at uh nsia today and and you know we’ve had this

Thing going on with the dams you know on the Columbia and I I I want to say that they’ve kind of put some breaks on that a little bit well I hear some positive stuff about it too yeah but you know because there’s groups like

Nsia um they’re able to you know give it that little push and and Bob was been very you know active with that stuff but you know they and some of this might be the save the whales but the federal government you know out of all this damn

Stuff is going to be increasing the amount of money for the hatcheries I mean we’re not talking like 10 bucks here $10 there we’re talking millions of dollars in fact uh I think uh I think it’s like 500 million for Hatchery main maintenance and updates and and you know

And maybe you’re not familiar with the Mitchell act the Mitchell Act was created to protect the fish essentially because this the dams were built the fish runs you know were affected by that and so and so that’s in place to do what it’s doing right now and you know and

You got all these different groups that are involved you know you know you got the sports guys you got the commercial guys and the natives and everybody wants their little piece and uh and so nsia is that voice that uh that can go to the

Capital or or or you know go to DC go to the capital here in in Oregon and Salem and and have a voice that can say Hey you know we need some money we need some help so if you’re you know if you want to be involved with NSA or your company

Um you should go to their website and you can donate you can become a member um and we’re always looking for we need some some young blood you know I mean Chris and I are young blood I mean I mean this guy’s handsome but you know

Couple more year I mean the gray hair we both got gray hair all over the place but uh but you know to be involved and you know we had a discussion a little bit about you know social media and you know people get online and they start

Writing oh well this is you know comment go and oh I’m going to save the planet nobody cares okay and I and I have a problem myself oh I really want to comment on that I got to keep my hands you know I’m not I’m not knocking it completely

But you can’t just make a comment on social media and save the salmon it’s just not going to happen but you can get involved with groups that have a focus you know almost I don’t want to call a pyramid thing but kind of is you know you get all these people involved and

Then you you send me you know send me to your leader and like that stuff if that makes any sense that’s my TT at humor anyway I try to do that so so Chris has always been super involved with all of that and you know and and kudos to him

You know you know you can you can fish and and not be involved honestly you know it can get really frustrating I get it I mean you know you want to beat your head against a wall because the issues move slowly yeah and progress Mo slowly

Yeah it does it does move slowly but you got to have a a a group you know that really focuses on that stuff nsia is is really exceptionally good at that and they’ve got some wins they got some losses but you know that’s how how it

Works you got to you know take the wins with the losses um so some some other interesting stuff so so I’ve got this old magazine here can you zoom in on the on the little cam here back in 19 uh 72 which you I was I was probably still

Crapping my pants maybe you were two I’d be two years old maybe I wasn’t I don’t know was it what you how old are you when you’re potty trained two or three yeah about two so maybe I was anyway this guy uh I don’t um Bill Mack he

Randomly I asked my dad about this he randomly sent this article in um in well maybe it was 71 but it got published in 72 in the April May issue and and and you know this is this is fun stuff so so there’s a picture here actually like

Nick took his oh yeah his uh boys down to the Bigfoot Center is and this is in Portland somewhere it’s actually up uh on Highway 26 just out of boring kind of Damascus area right on the highway there before you get up to Sandy By Boring

Yeah is it by the Safeway or it’s the the old is it The Swiss Inn or what what is that uh it’s no longer it was a kind of a restaurant drivein the oh on the corner is you’re turning to go towards 26 yes yeah okay okay yeah it’s across

From the fire station kind of just Kitty diag right on 26 right on the exit there by you’re coming from Portland and you’re going through boring it’s the last right turn you make as you’re going straight at 26 Highway 26 right there something like that and it was a

Restaurant drive-thru okay I know and and so this is this is interesting let me let me go to let me go to page 14 there’s actually a map an article oh look at that yeah so and this is this is you know it it isn’t isn’t like related

To fishing because you know I can’t tell you there isn’t there isn’t a fisherman out there that hasn’t been down on the river probably by himself actually let’s say by himself and maybe it’s getting a little bit late and and you’re like you get this hair pop up on the back of your

Neck right and and uh I’ve been there I think everybody’s been there and you’re like yeah oh yeah and then you hear a noise and then and then you just you just feel like there’s something watching you could be a cougar you know who knows right but

Uh that’s just part of this kind of stuff you know so this is kind of cool this is actually go back to the little map here it’s got and and I’m just and I just kind of honestly I’ve never really looked this closely till today there’s actually and Chris was telling me about

This there’s a uh like a highway here well T of the Cascades from Eureka all the way to BC it’s the backbone of the Cascades and then and then it continues down by San Francisco it must flatten out here down there that so this is kind of like the the the where people

See him this call the Bigfoot belt yeah the Bigfoot belt 67,000 square miles and so and you know I got to be honest uh uh what is it the not the what’s the channels that it’s Discovery Channel or whatever you know every time there’s a

Bigfoot special on there I am you know I love watching that stuff I remember when I was a kid and and there were some comments on this on Facebook earlier there was a show on on TV in the 70s where these people were in a cabin and

Uh these rocks were getting lobbed right on top of the cabin the the it was a type of cabin I think it was like in the 30s or 40s 30s like a reenactment of of an incident that was well documented and happened back in I think the 30s and

Happed where you grew up yeah it happened right south of Mount St Helens at an old mine site uh and there was a cab up there and it uh the guys got scared out of there and ran out the next day yeah they hunkered in they like

Closed all the like it was a cabin you could lock down for the winter with the windows that you know you could put 2x4s on and so they totally locked down and just this I guess it happened all night and then they took off and told their

Story but I saw that they made the newspaper back then like the Kelo times I think it was it was published in crazy stuff but uh so yeah we’re going to actually put this article in the next issue oh great so you know you guys want to subscribe go to the salmon trout

Steel header website and uh and you know and this this is I mean it’s it’s interesting and and you know there’s people that have had encounters that you know it it it scares the ebgbs out of you but it it’s so so like like it makes

You a Believer you know like you you see it you hear something I don’t know there there’s uh lot well we can’t don’t to mention names but but it it’s like uh I don’t know how to explain it what would you call it well it’s there’s something

Out there I think a lot of people are seeing something that you can’t just knock off as a bear or a cougar and uh a lot of credible people are you know having Encounters of some sort with something that you just can’t wash away

As a bear all the time yeah my dad told us a story he was he used to have this old wooden drift boat in the 70s and he was floating some River out in the boonies you know put in here take out there nothing in between no Road no

Houses um I almost want to say like the Bell coola or something which is middle of nowhere in Canada um but his friend Dick and him were anchored probably drift fishing and out of nowhere this blood curling scream just like they’re it’s in a valley Big Trees fur trees and like you

Know they both looked at each other and they started rooll out they laugh and uh that’s how like freaky some of this stuff is I mean and uh anyway and then so this guy just he wrote this article and sent it in into the magazine and uh

And and it’s really interesting and you know you saw Frankie and Ronnie at the at that place up in I think it’s called the North American Bigfoot Center yeah so if you ever if you’re ever in boring go check it out take the kids and uh and you can learn about Bigfoot actually

There’s there’s Bigfoot statues at bonnaville Dam uh just over here in cwood it’s part of Northwest culture and dating back to even before white men were here I mean it’s part of native culture yeah all over the world like people that the tribes that didn’t even

Know each other had have the same story so it’s got to that’s got to mean something I would definitely say so so you’re doing the steel head coming up here yeah I started on January 3rd I’m going to probably go fishing this week here just to kind of go fishing because

It’s been a while and uh but yeah I start guiding on the 3D of January so so I have heard that there’s some fish at the coast you know probably at the secret River yeah but there there’s definitely some fish around I I know this for a fact and and I’ve seen some

Pictures apparently they like apparently they like beads but uh but yeah you definitely you know if you want to go fishing and you want to go with Chris I’ll I’ll uh I’m going to put his phone number and his website information down in the notes

Here and then uh so so two weeks and then they can get a hold of you with your cell phone or do you want um I’m I’m actually full for the season already for Ste season forget that but um actually I I got one opening I think

Like the fourth or the eighth or something like that at January which you know if I fish I do if I don’t I don’t but yeah I got it one day open for the steel head season after that it’s spring shinook wow what about Springers you got

Any openings there I do have some openings for Springers I I generally book that a little later because we don’t know what the season’s going to be like yet the openings closings and March and all that fun stuff right hey I want to tell you something Tony too um I’ve

Been a big fan of your magazine since I was a kid oh thanks and uh I many of these uh old issues not back this far I don’t have this issue but many of these old issues I still have and uh I was a subscriber forever and I’ve saved them

All and uh I memorized a lot of these articles almost you know and you know they they become personal after a while or there’s something that you you picked up like forever like you read something and you’re like okay I got to start doing that and it just stays with you

Yeah well this is the stuff I paid attention to when I read it when I was young Now history and you know all the subjects in school and stuff I read it because I had to but I read this because I wanted to there’s a I think there’s a

Like literally a picture of EXC me zoom zoom in on this one right here I think we got some oky here maybe some Corky there’s an old flatfish there yeah flatfish and that’s like a a ray bobber type of lure with a spinner blade is that a gap what the

Heck is that and some old almost looks like a pencil sinkers yeah and you know these this still works great really you wanted to use that I don’t know about those but maybe if you’re plk you know for plunking maybe but uh it’s just funny how uh you know if this photo was

In color you could see a lot and uh and it you know you know look modern it it’s so similar to everything that we’re doing right now other than sliding sliding now we’re just drift fishing with a bobber sliding the bait up the hook right in a bobber exactly and and

Really this is like the original stick weight yeah but that’s a lot of weight you’d be fishing like a 10t hole with a Falls in front of it but we had to use more weight back then because we had thick line that’s part of it right

There oh yeah oh I can’t I can’t tell you how many times um like you know I was doing the doing The Jig and bobber thing you know early the old Jim Bradberry J yeah and you get a snag and you okay you know go to the yank it out

And it would give right and then you reel it back and you you and then you’ve got somebody else’s rig right and it’s like 50 lb test with this big chunk of lead and and this hook that sometimes a big old trouble hook oh yeah you’re like

Whoa is using that I mean proba fishing but anyway just it’s just you know what everybody has their own little techniques line weights you know there’s no exact science to this stuff I mean it’s helpful to see everybody else’s rigs but definitely no exact science I

Mean if you got your bead out there you like you could be drip fishing that bead with with the stick weight maybe I don’t know if you need more or less but uh you could be on the bank and just using a level one and then you you know get to feel

That fish grab it anyway well anything else is anything you want to add or ask I think uh I think we’re pretty good but uh Chris super nice guy look him up he says that about everybody no you know I only hang out with nice people there

You go because uh life’s Too Short you know it really is and uh and James come here oh just get your butt up here this is that we got to we got to bring up the producer I wouldn’t say that anyway so yeah so James is back here he’s back

There running the camera and showing all the stuff and uh and James is about to James James is about the sizey I’m not as good as Tony yet James is about the size of big foot he’s a big kid so we’re right there so if you see him out there

You call him Bigfoot no Kidd please don’t but yeah awesome guy and uh I can’t thank him enough for doing this because he’s got to take time out of his day to uh run the camera family too I’m married into it family family right yeah I’ll tell I’ll tell Lindsay to send you

Here right so thanks for watching and uh I want to throw out I I’m I’m working on for next week I’m going to just throw it out there I don’t know I don’t know if he’ll make it or not but working on Big Dave for next week so we’ll see he’s

He’s on vacation right now this is kind of the the vacation time of year for guys you know go to Mexico or Hawaii or somewhere and take a break you know from fishing but we’ll see hopefully hopefully I can get him on actually I’m thinking since I mentioned his name I’m

Might give him a little poke we’ll see so all right we’ll see you guys next time thanks for having me Tony oh thanks for coming Yeah