4) STORIES & ARTICLES

UPDATED JULY 15TH, 2009





By the original Allaroundangler

If you replace the word ‘Sturg’ in the title of this article with the word ‘late’….than this is a phrase most of you have heard of. In fact, probably all of you. But once I change just ONE word, it takes on a whole new meaning. Just like BOAT fishing for sturgeon versus BANK fishing for sturgeon. That ONE word, just changed everything: type and size of lead, length of leader & way leader is tied to begin with, type of bait, size of bait and kind of bait rigging, rod, reel, and probably even location. Wow. Think about that.

Most of the fishermen here in the Pacific Northwest have or will sport-fish for large (upwards of several hundred lbs) sturgeon in our mighty Columbia River. I would go so far as to say most fishermen who will do this successfully will have known someone who has a boat or was invited along to experience what I’ve always called “Blue Collar Marlin Fishing.” These are commonly sought after guided trips as well……so you’ve at least heard stories.



If you’re a bank sturgeon fisherman; you’ve got a lot of skill, to be certain. To successfully cast a 12-14′ casting rod with an open faced live bait saltwater reel is no joke. There’s a ton of room for error, and the success of your fishing session is dependent upon that one cast….not just a lift and drop from the boat.

You also aren’t hooking these monster over-sized fish from the bank with nearly the regularity that a boat angler can. However, you will hook some if you take the time to get dialed in…..like Sal did here…



The boating skill with this method lies in the preparation and the vessel captaining and crucial anchoring process.

So you can see there are many initial, fundamental differences between bank and boat sturgeon fishing…philosophically and otherwise. I mean to also point out the subtle differences between the terminal rigging….and we’ll leave all the other stuff for later on…..in the comments tabs or just another post all together.

SO…what can be SOOOO different between the terminal rigs…going between ‘boat’ and ‘bank’ methodology, right? The answer: A whole lot. I’m also not talking about your favorite sturgeon hole from the bank where you are tossing your 7′ boat rod with a whole calamari squid half-hitched on there. I’m talking about fundamental differences between the two and why they are the way they are:

METHODS & REASONING:

Once you’ve found your spot the idea is to position the boat over the top end of the long deep trough, if possible. In the Columbia, by law, you are required to anchor with 7X the depth of the water you are anchoring in….for your total rope length. For example, if you are anchoring in 30′ of water in the Columbia, you must have (even if not all is deployed) seven times the depth of water in rope length. That’s 210 feet, folks. Too many people have died in that river trying to anchor by traditional methods. Hence the birth of the anchor pulley….I can explain this off line or in another article if you are interested….

So, by positioning your vessel slightly upriver from the intended fishing zone….it reasons the type of rig you would use would be a traditional sliding lead, braided leader, threaded bait fish-type rig…..always ask in the comment field if you don’t understand a description of something in the article…...


DD fights a sturgeon on a traditional boat outfit..sliding lead on main line…medium length dacron leader..large hook through a smelt, no bait wrap

Let’s take that rig now and think about rigging it up. We’ll probably take a small bait fish of some kind, depending on your preference and the time of year….we’ll want to ‘match the hatch’ on their food choice as much as we can…but let’s say it’s a smelt, because we all know what that is. You’re going to take your bait and half hitch the braided line portion around your bait….creating a FLAT lay…even when held stationary in HEAVY current…NO spinning. You’ll just driving nails into your own coffin that day if you don’t take the time to do this. Trim a tail, cut off a fin….try your half hitches again…just don’t fish it spinning...and then feathering the heavy lead down to the bottom..smoothly and without jerkiness…imagining that flat lay.

Before that lead hits the bottom…let’s look over at the bank fisherman, and how he is rigging and what he is doing…..


he’s going to end up set like this..so he has to use different lead, bait size and construction, leader length & size, etc. Why, you ask? A few different key things force these changes: Some of these might include casting from the bank on a 13 plus foot long rod, with up to a pound of lead under full load…can tend to rip the crap out of a bait. Especially if that bait is wrapped by a boat fisherman who’s never seen a need to wrap a bait up on a super short leader (2″ if possible…see my secret bankie knot…) and decides to cast without wrapping the bait up with stretch thread, magic thread..etc. It’s not pretty and it’s going to need a re baiting. Guaranteed. So the bank fisherman must also keep that bait small and compact. About the size of a man’s thumb, once compacted and wrapped. This provides aerodynamics as well as staying power through multiple bite attempts during one bait session. Remember, you have to picture what the bank fisherman has to do to get set. Casting and positioning is everything.



With a weekend of sturg planned with Big Burge….I thought this might get some more of you out there. Cheers.

H3llcat




UPDATED June 12th, 2009




By Chris Heller

A big misconception among many river anglers is that when the water is UP, such as the conditions we have this time of year in the northwest (this year especially) you must go to larger drift and/or bobber baits in order to find success. This is true with Salmon most of the time, but not the case with steelhead. I’ve written other articles about ‘clear rises’ and ‘fishing at your feet’…….well this tip is just as important if you want to have 20 plus fish seasons or more (like magic and I are having) out there on your favorite steelhead rivers.


Here’s an example of a HIGH water yarn ball…..tipped with an EZ Egg for chewyness factor…

In my experience, a steelhead will almost always prefer to bite something smaller if they can see it. Where this rule wouldn’t apply to river fishing? Answer: boat or bank anglers fishing the larger rivers, like the CR for example, will typically use large presentations. Mostly because these are ‘plunking’ presentations. Other than that, for all other freshwater steelhead applications….stay small.

Now, staying small doesn’t mean to ‘go light’ by any means. Here’s another mistake so many anglers make. They think “Well, I’ve gone small …..so I’d better run the amount of lead that looks right for the size of bait/rig on the end of my line.” Wrong. This isn’t anything new to some of you, but it’s a good reminder for all of us……IN HIGH WATER, YOUR STRIKE ZONES ARE SHORTENED AND IN MOST CASES EXTENDED OR DEEPENED….so you have a much higher chance of missing it all together without knowing it.

What is the key in these conditions? GET DOWN QUICK. Most of you would balk at casting something like I do in high water. It’s a bit of an artillery. There’s lot’s of moving parts and pieces to make float rigs, mainly because you are trying to accomplish so many different things at once. The most important feature of this whole rig has to be the lead. Whether you are partial to running terminal and leader lead, or just leader lead (either one will work as long as your heavy enough) make sure you KNOW exactly where your intended strike zone is for the water you are fishing at that moment. Keep in mind that that strikezone could change with a step up or down river. So take time before each cast to make sure you look at the following factors:

If you’re running a multi-colored yarn ball, make sure to trim it up. Steelhead don’t like a stringy yarn ball. If you’re running a pink plastic, make sure it falls true, and doesn’t spin. Threading it is really the only way to make sure this won’t happen.



Also, once the water gets more than about 3 feet of visibility…go to the yarn balls…….BUT “don’t go too large.”

Also, consider these suggestions:

1) Identify your strike zone

2) Rig enough lead to get down quick, but not too much to get hung up often…once in a while is okay…

3) Tweak you casts, bobber-stop depths, etc….(around each strike zone you’ve identified) in order to make sure you are targeting all the different depths.

4) Keep your leaders short: Since you are pegging your leader with LARGE split shot (#1 or #2) a longer leader will only create trouble in the form of tangles and snafus…and is not necessary. Remember, high water gives fish cover and makes them feel protected. Consider this as well as the fact that these fish need to conserve their energy. Fish close to the bank…or fish water where an uneven bottom has given them some relief from the higher flows. Look for these areas and work them hard at many different depths.





April 2009

1990: THE BUCK AND DUCK STORY….



By Chris Heller

prologue……………..Around the time I was about sixteen years old, I had a cowboy hat I wore all the time when I went fishing. The hat had been a ‘lucky hat’ ever since a trip on the Deschutes (picture from that trip in pic above my name) when the winds had kicked up and blown it off my head. This was a hat I had given to me by my Grandpa in Pinedale, Wyoming, and was very special to me. The Deschutes is a ginormous river and it swallowed up my lucky hat a few miles hike up from the famous ‘locked gate’ road. With incredible karma as the only explanation….(all hail the fish Gods) after a three mile hike back down river the hat popped up along the river at exactly a moment and a place I could grab it. The odds are astronomical. Cosmic, really. Sal can testify. So, this is also about the time Sal, Doug Stewart and myself along with the old channel six news guy-Rick Metzger took two Portland Trailblazers fishing on the Salmon River…..


Buck Williams swings a spinner for a spring chinook…and yes, that’s a fish on his head…

All I can really remember about how I got involved in this event, is that Sal, working for the USFS asked me to come along. A volunteer of sorts that could assist Kevin Duckworth and Buck Williams with their fishing gear on the river bank, etc. He went on to explain that, as part of a national campaign, they were going to be taking a camera crew to Mt. Hood and to the Salmon River. Rick Metzger, then a channel 6 newscaster, was involved by donating the use of his property along the river for the poster shoot. I understood that we would be fishing a big hole that notoriously held big springers, according to Doug Stewart of Stewart’s Fly shop in Wood Village, Oregon. This of course, was back when you could fish springers in the Salmon. They are protected now.



Here, are a couple action photos, wink, of me helping the famous Buck and Duck………



It really was a helluva experience for a kid like me. Fishing fool and a basketball fool. What an opportunity. It wasn’t without it’s moments of memorable comments; such as Buck explaining to me that ‘back home we fish with string attached to soup can lids….” I found myself not asking him what he was fishing for. I knew all I needed to know once I saw him put his spinning reel onto his rod, backwards. I realized at that point that I would be untangling these guys all day long. Which is exactly what happened. ALL DAY LONG.

Doug Stewart had located a fish sulking in the meat of the hole. He was trying to explain to our guests how to drift in front of the fish with their gear. It was a complete disaster. On almost every cast Buck would get hung up. I would wade out and try to get his lure, and then offer a suggestion of where to make his next cast. It didn’t help much.


Duckworth really enjoyed himself…just a great guy


Doug Stewart in his unmistakable fishing cap, Buck Williams and Rick Metzger in the lower right corner of the photo

As you can see in the picture above, it was quite the affair. By the time the photographers were all set up, everyone realized we weren’t going to be able to get these guys into one of these fish for the poster shoot. SO, on one of the casts that Buck made, he got hung up. I can’t remember who said it, but someone suggested they take the photos with Buck ‘hung up’ so it would look like a ‘fish on’! Amazing. The poster later on indicated as much. Just classic. What I wouldn’t give for one of those old posters.



I have to mention in closing, that Doug Stewart ended up hooking that fish. The man was incredible. Famous for putting pencil lead on his fly rig. Got right down in that fast water and hit it in the nose. He later lost the fish. What a trip down memory lane.


updated January 2009


Evolution, or just a change of pace?

Most of my life I have caught fish from the bank. Whether I’ve been fly fishing for trout as a teenager in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon or casting my proudest gob of roe on one of our coastal King rivers….I’ve almost always done so, from the bank.

The few trips over the years I’ve done out of a boat were usually a fluke….and other than some over-sized Sturgeon fishing, it’s never been productive..especially not for Salmon…..because there wasn’t a consistent focus….or a good source of knowledge and information to help me/us get better.

I wouldn’t have guessed, almost three years ago now, when Gavin, Sal and I bought the Diamond Back Drifter….that we would be nailing chrome bright Kings out of it…in the Columbia River on anchor next to hawg lines and sleds….that is not until LipRipper showed me how to convert my traditional drift boat into one ‘fit’ for CR Chinook anchor fishing.

I wouldn’t have been comfortable enough hooking an anchor and bouy system up to my driftboat, let alone backbounce 12 ounces of lead on a wobbler in fifty feet of water with ANY kind of confidence.

If Big Tone and Jed didn’t have an uncle who owns the Acropolis, they would have never re-connected with our old comrade from the original Fisherman’s back in the day, ToDD “Double D” Peterson.

Thanks to DD’s selfless runs with us out in the big river, we were not only able to see how to catch fresh fish in the big river from a driftboat…..but also now we were able to see how the finer nuances played into the mix…..washing lures with soap…running tremendously long lead lines…..the best rods to use for maximum wobbler presentation…as well as countless other helpful hints and habits to form for future success.

So, as I sit and think about these two new Team Salmon members….and I think of the original TS guys that have ponied up trips this fall season…..I’m forced to wonder…Is Team Salmon evolving as a group of Allaroundanglers? Or, is this boat fishing simply a change of pace? I’ll let the future trips speak for themselves.

I just wanted to prop these guys and give the rest of you something to think about. I’ll tell you what, it’s been a long time since I tagged six Kings in a month….let alone HOT fish that wreak of Chromeness and little wiggly sea lice.

This boat fishing just might be more than a change of pace. Just a hunch.

H3LLcat