I'm about to do an interview piece on a guy Nick and I think may be the world's most gonzo fisherman. But I wondered if you know of anyone who can beat this guy. His name is Klaus. Some of us call him sh#thouse Klaus. Among other things he has:

Lived in a tree house on the Stamp River for four weeks, so he could be the first one to the run each day. He had a girl living with him, but said he threw her out for tying bad leaders.

Flies to B.C. from Denmark every year to fish from Sept. to Jan.

Slept in his tiny car on the Thompson for two weeks. Nighttime temperatures often as low as 15 degrees.

Fell into a canyon on the Gold River. Laid in the river for hours hoping to get the swelling in his back to go down. Finally crawled out. Back was broken'

This fall drove of a cliff in a snowstorm on the way back from the Kispiox. While in the hospital he called a friend to bring a metal detector to help find the spoons that flew out the car as it was rolling.

Says he is bummed that he didn't discover steelhead until he was 30. Says now this life cannot possibly be long enough to let him fish all the steelhead he needs to catch.

Do you know anyone else that addicted?

Now that's funny

I know a guy that rolled his truck at 5:00am and two fish on the bank by 11:00.

boy! once i saw a pacific islander standing up to his waist in the river in january in shorts.....dedicated

Gsiegel is not telling a tall tale, he did roll his truck while pulling his driftboat, and was fishing shortly thereafter, luckily his boat came unhitched from the truck.

Ng

My non-fishing friends (I do have a few!) think that I'm crazy, and I always tell them that they don't know the half of it...I should show them this thread so they can see just how crazy this steelhead thing can get!

The craziest thing I've ever done is rappel down into a canyon to fish...and not thinking about how to get out of the canyon later!

It was way too high to climb out (trust me, I tried), so I ended up swimming for about 150 feet with all my gear and a fish out the bottom of the canyon to a spot where I was able to bushwhack up the cliff back to the top.

I've never been back...as far as I know, my rope is still hanging from a tree all the way down the cliff.

Fish on...

Todd

...yep, I know him, you have described him well, there Dave!LOL The first time I met him on the Stamp river, he was sort of shocked to see us fishing on the same side as the fort...you see, he used to pack a canoe and paddle from the Beaver Creek side of the river to the opposite beach - his base camp was a triangular log structure built between three trees about 10 to 12 feet off the ground - guess he was a fraid of bears or somethin'?

Funny thing was - the first day that we crossed paths he was fishing a tail-out of a pool for coho and chinook [not the best spot], actually all the anglers were up there with him, because he was playing movie director and we were fishing the sweat spot down below approx 150 yards down river of them.

We watched him and the others hook into the odd fish, maybe one every 20 minutes or so, while we tried to stay unnoticed, hooking coho almost every cast or two...it wasn't very long before we were noticed on his camp side of the river - he started to have an uneasy stance as I am sure he thought that he had the secret camp spot all to himself.

Soon he recognized that we had the best spot in the immediate area to fish from - he paddled over to check us out and to check on his camp. [from the river banks you could not see the fort, but from our trail we walked right up to it just inside the bush]

Needless to say he left us pretty much alone...watching us the rest of the day while we slayed!

The very next morning we scrambled down the trail to find old Klaus fishing the sweat spot - "how's it going?" - "oh, it's not the best today. I have only had two fish on." he says.

As we were speaking I was eyeing the flow...I grind with delight as I watch his drift. [just shy, every cast]

At that time it was between 5 and 530am. We moved in just below him, bang! Fish-on,Fish-on,Fish-on,Fish-on,Fish-on and more fish on...we were slayin' it went on for hours, we were hooking approx ten to fifteen fish to his one or two. Then Klaus figured out the hole and the ratio changed and he started to get a few more...

Now, in between all this fish action he had his camera going, filming and still shots and all kinds of action...the reason I remember him so well is that this is the same day my son caught his 20 lb coho - a trophy for anyone, but what made this special is that he was just around 6 years old!

It's also the coho that Nathan wrote a storey about and entered into the Gibb's Kid's writing contest and won first place and it is also the very same coho within the same time frame as the contest, that someone with a big know it all attitude made a big stink calling the fish a chinook, creating a huge controversy about it in the pages of BC Outdoors spanning two or three magazine issues. the dude was wrong...we proved that out [Now that's a whole different story.]

Any way, I digress - I remember Klaus very well, he was fun to fish beside, eager to learn new technics and extremely excitable on the riverside.

Brings back good memories...that was also the last day that we saw him.

I spoke to Klaus tonight. He called me from Denmark. He wants to come back and fish the Thompson some more that fall, but his Dr. says he should avoid the extreme cold with the recent lung punctures. When he asked me how cold it was, I told him it was 28 degrees here. He figured the Thompson should be about 18 which he thinks should be just fine.


He told me he is so excited about coming back he can’t sleep. His wife thinks he should stay in Denmark with her and his his 10 month old son for Christmas. I suspect I will be seeing him soon.

RVP,

Outstanding first post! Welcome.

RVP Thanks for confirming that Klaus is real. PLEASE keep posting. We need more B.C. input.

Can you answer a question? (I think it's okay to hijack your own thread!)Is there any sign of recovery on the Vancouver Island steelhead rivers? Any ideas why they tanked?

I know Klaus! He's a legend in these parts. I met him on the Thompson. He's as nice as he is big!

I have a further story to add. While partying with the boys til 3 am Klaus checks his watch and jumps up and starts to get his gear together! Everyone watches in amazement as the big guy bolts out the door. No one see's him til 10 pm that night. Well, Klaus has this spot he love's to fish, and with no boat he has to JOG(yes he jogs) the 10 km, in waders, with all his gear and rods, to his favorite spot! He says the look on the faces of jetboaters pullin' in to see him already fishing is priceless!

Klaus is one helluva guy. A true treasure to our sport. Last time we talked he was proud of his nine month old boy, but sad that he may not be able to visit again for some years! Sure.....

Tat: I know where Klaus was jogging to. I'm sure you do too. I wont even walk in there. He really is one in a million. Does anyone else have any Klaus stories?

This same guy, while fishing on the Thompson would belly boat to the otherside of the river down in the canyon. One tiome while kicking across one flipper fell off. Not only did he come back with one flipper but fished down there for 5 more days doing the same crossing not far above a huge set of rapids every day. He has become a mini legend with his crazy pursuit of steelhead and salmon in BC. Will drive any distance to any place if he thinks that they may be biting.

Dave
not to answer for RVP, but there are only 2 systems on Van. Isle that have any volume of steelhead left in them. 1) Stanp/Somass and 2)_ Cowichan. The east side of Van. Isle remains closed and most of the other streams that are open have returns between 100 to 600 fish. Definately a case of what was and now what is not. Both of the decent systems have a hatchery on them and get heavy pressure. You can find some decent fishing elsewhere, but it is more of a case of being the only guy fishing on 50-100 fish in an entire system. Lots of regulations.closed areas, c'n'r, bait bans,etc. Very sad state of affairs up here. Should keep this thread on Klaus, it is much more entertaining

This guy Klaus sounds like a gonzo dude and has choosen to foresake other avenues in life for the sake of fishing. Stories such as this and other true steelhead bums have never impressed me much, they are just teetering a level above transients. I've already got my own gonzo stories that I can fondly reflect, what would impress me is his advocation of giving back to the resource besides taking from it.

Dave...the main reason the steelhead on Vancouver Island "tanked" is due to humans extremely underestimating a so called renewable and sustainable resouce - like all human labled resources that are harvested, each has it's own recovery time...some quite simply, are harvested to the point of a non existant state. ie.,mining , old growth timber, whaling, and many other fisheries. Too many reasources have fallen once touched by the hands of Man.

There have been demonsterous efforts toward rebuilding natural steelhead and salmon runs on Vancouver Island over the past few decades...each project has been less than successful. Even with millions and millions of dollars invested into many stream habitat recovery, tree planting projects along river banks, reintroducing gravel in areas where spawning reds have been washed away by flooding, developing spawning channels as close to nature as possible - none have succeeded by vertue of the intended efforts put forward by Gov't, industry, and countless dedicated volunteer groups who have poured their heart and soul into some of these projects over the years.

Many thousands of volunteers, working towards steelhead rebuilding in British Columbia go un thanked for their efforts in such a noble cause.

...sorry, I am floating a little here and sort of got side tracked - it is not just humans that are responsible for the crash in steelhead numbers, but a combination of many variables and a few that I am sure that we have not discovered or thought of yet.

I still need to reiterate upon words writen earlier...that it is of my opinion that human development and industry, are the largest contributing factors to the declining steelhead stocks on VI...then mother nature for a minute proportion.

We used to have acres upon acres of kelp beds lining the shores of Vancouver Island...this was habitat for steelhead during the ocean cycle, it also housed tons upon tons of baitfish as well as other food sources - today we have next to no kelp lining our shores. Why? Industry, polution...

The inside of VI also used to have the richest herring mass on our coast - at times we would see pilchards and anchovy, needlefish...another food source on the inside of VI that was on the decline is shrimp, krill, prawn - and in some portions of the Gulf these food sources, after decades of decline, and in more recent years are now showing possitive signs of recovery.

Hmmm...maybe this is a loaded question that you are asking me to answer - Dave, I don't think I know the real answer or at the very least it has to do with the "Lack of" - Lack of habitat...Lack of flow...Lack of food sources...Lack of protection...Lack of steel in each flow to spawn and grow.

It's funny, many angler's that I meet on the flow or in a shop or where ever - say in conversation..."oh, there's lot's of steel in that river!" [creek, or stream - which ever it may be] They go on to annouce that they hooked 2, or 7, or ten, maybe 20 steel that day...but they never once stopped and thought about how bad it really was until I asked them how many fish were in the river? Maybe the river they were fishing only held 20 fish [or worse - less than 20]

This is the case on Vancouver Island...and this was the only way I know how to answer your question Dave - sorry it was such a long post.

RVP

I like to feel I go to great lengths to catch steelhead, such as fishing in -21 degrees(including wind chill). Fishing with a freshly broken ankle,broken hand, or the time I fished the day after being in the hospital with pnumonia(back to the hospital the next day).
But this fellow Klause sounds like THE REAL gonzo steelhead warrior. The fact he hails from Europe has me even more impressed.Canadians have a bit of a CRAZY personality and Klause seems to fit right in,hope I get to meet him on the T.

Doesn't sound like he'll make it another 30. At the rate he's going he'd better enjoy every trip like it's his last.

Sol, on that philosophy, from what I'm hearing, he figured he'd die at age 31! lol... I've done some crazy cliffhanger stuff to catch a steelhead, but holy jesus.. Is this guy on crack? He has my respect! lol...

Does Gonzo stand for retarded? If so I would agree with you on Denmarks title. If you cant see why do you drive fast enough to go over a cliff? Living in a tree hut at age thirty. That getting up 30 minutes earlier is so hard I have thought about living like a bum in a tree.