Steelhead truly embody the mood swings in fly fishing: the crushing defeat of multiple fishless days and the intense euphoria of picking up three fish before noon. Sometimes, I believe every swing will hook a bright chrome fish charging up the river, and others, well, I might have as much confidence in catching an anadromous shark.
As the law of averages pulls you between highs and lows, keep a level head with faith; the tides will start to pull your way one day. The mysticism of steelhead fishing can be a formidable opponent for an angler new to the sport; the where, the how, and the why of these fish are bizarre and confusing to an angler. Jump on the internet and try to find a method everyone can agree on to catch a summer steelhead; the answer is there is no right way. No fly, line, or rod can catch a steelhead for you. If they are present and in a good mood, you may be lucky enough to hook a fish, but that being said, there is a difference between the anglers who catch them most of the time and the anglers who catch them sometimes.
As much as the anglers like to give credit to the grey ghosts roaming our rivers, the luck factor is only part of the equation; the other is where preparedness and practice meet. I recently started to angle for steelhead in the last year or so, as I previously lived in Montana, which unfortunately only harbors the best trout fishing rivers in the world but no steel. Before Montana, I lived in my home state, Idaho, which has the most easterly steelhead runs in the states. Still, I was blissfully unaware of the seafaring rainbows lurking a few hours south of my hometown as I plied the waters with a parachute Adams for aggressive cutthroats.
But since my first steelhead, a boot of a buck on the Grande Ronde that looked to be the first fish over the dam that summer due to its dark coloration and missing eye, I've slowly tried to chip away at the why and how of catching them. My friend and fellow guide, Tonn, and I discuss swinging flies, often involving disagreements on the subject with no real way to declare a winner. But key components of fishing are important: the cast, control, and consistency. The cast needs to reach the fish and not only one out of every five. Finding the target cast after cast gives the fish a consistent presentation. Casting a mile is not the most important, but an angler needs to reach the fishy water throughout their pass through a run.
Fishy interactions keep steelhead and anglers going because they provide feedback, and a bump, tap, or tug can motivate anglers to take three more steps down the river and sling out some line to the idea of a fish. But when the fishless days come, be prepared to weather the storm; drink a beer, and keep on smiling because we're just fishing, after all.
Two Skunks in the Desert
Those lows I was talking about came quickly in the first two days of the four-day trip without a hint of a fish, pristine run after pristine run, but some days, you take your lumps. Tonn received convincing bumps in a few runs, but he was fishing T-11 sink tips, which I tried to tell him was western rockfish jolting his line, which he staunchly disagreed.
Swing, step, look around, launch a shit cast, strip it back in quick, hoping no one saw, and repeat. Repeat until you decide to cruise to camp and ease the steelhead woes by sipping some handcrafted Oregon IPAs or Budlight until the light is right for an evening swing session.
Tonn warned me of a skunk in the area, not just our lack of fish, but the real deal, that ravaged camps and rifled through trash cans and food bins. We locked our goods up in preparation to fish and hung the trash to avoid the skunk before setting out to do the same on the water. The lull of another beer and a comfy chair tried to draw me back to camp, but sleep would not come easy if I let the final hour and a half of light pass me by without a fly in the water, plus, with sunset at 4:45 pm there is no shortage of time to drink a beer by the fire.
The stiff afternoon breeze reared its head as we set off to our allotted runs, which Tonn graciously allowed me to choose my section. I chose the lower run, as I had lost a fish there on my last trip down the river, and redemption was in order.
But after about a half dozen casts in the wind, I all but forwent the possibility of catching a steelhead as I watched the tip of my line fly upstream or not layout. The three beers were no help either as I navigated the minefield of slippery boulders that is the Deschutes river bottom. Success: while I hadn't seen any fish, my running line followed my shooting head out of the guides despite the breeze and was still dry, which is sometimes all you can ask.
A tree and a deep, muddy bottom prevented my downward progress, so I told myself one more cast before circumnavigating the obstacles. The line shot out the rod, and my mini intruder swam through the sunset-lit waters before it came to an abrupt stop, and I mean stop, there was no tug, no movement, simply a full stop at a 30-degree angle. In my pursuit of the fish, I forgot that I might indeed hook one eventually, so after a brief moment of stupor, I swept my rod to the bank and came tight to the oversized rainbow that grabbed my fly so calmly.
The fish continued her polite demeanor until the sink tip protruded from the end of the rod, and flashes of red and silver glinted in the fading light. In my mind, the fight was over, but the fish needed to show off before it came to hand. Some thrashing and tail-walking commenced until my hand clasped the rudder of the gorgeous wild steelhead and took a quick video before the fish disappeared in a final boil.
After a moment of silence followed by congratulatory muttering to myself, my fly found itself on the guide of the rod as I scrambled out of the water, happy to make my last cast of the day a productive event.
Tonn did not find the same luck I found in his upper section of the run but celebrated with me as if he had caught it himself. I told him I left half a run of fresh water filled with steelhead below, but his optimism faded with the light. Swing by swing, he stepped down the run with Murphy (Tonn's dog) and me in attendance because I felt the tides turning (it was the optimism-inducing 8% IPA) and wanted to be around when it happened.
True nightfall fell around us as I anxiously waited for Tonn to get to the bucket that produced my fish. I reiterated that a fish would come in the next ten minutes. Tonn did not comment and steadily worked past the spot I hooked into my fish. The 5:15 dusk made it hard to see the shooting head in the water, and Tonn committed a final cast above the overhanging tree. Then the reel sang, and the line started peeling off the reel.
After a quick sprint for the net and Tonn bending his rod to the hilt due to a tight drag and 15-
pound Maxima, the fish came to the net within a minute. A few flash photos lit up the colorful fish, and the Hail Mary steelhead smile before it jetted off to continue its upstream progress.
Dead Skunks
Two steelhead in the same run, a few beers, and good food improved our spirits for the morning swing session on the camp water. The skunk was over, and so far, there was no sign of the real critter that liked to take hot dog buns hostage, but we still closed our food bins tight and hung our trash in a tree.
Dawn broke as I walked to my lower section of the run to try and find another grey ghost in the near darkness. My first casts were filled with optimism, and in my eagerness, I reminded myself to take my time and fish the water thoroughly instead of racing to the sweet spot.
But cast after cast, the feeling of invincibility changed to an even-keeled admiration for the morning glow on the hillsides and sheep walking along the cliffs along the opposite bank. The sweet spot passed me by as the sun painted the hillsides closer to the river bank, and I stepped down the water I stopped short of yesterday. I saw a large fish surface directly below me after a few casts below the tree and slightly beyond the reach of my fly. In a stupor, I continued to stare at the spot, waiting for something else to happen, and pulled a single strip of the running line, and the water exploded below me.
The steelhead swiped at my fly as my line reached the hang-down, and after a few minutes of tug of war, the fish came to hand, and my morning was nearly perfected. Like the evening before, I hooked my fly in the guide and reeled in my line before heading upstream to fish behind Tonn. After a few minutes of convening on the morning's bumps, casts, and hookups, I popped upstream of Tonn, attempting to stir up something behind him.
The late morning action slowed as I stumbled downstream until I heard a distant echo rebound off the canyon wall. During a brief moment of hesitation, wondering if I made up the noise in my head, I threw my rod on the bank and hustled to the lower stretch of the run with the net. After a brief sprint, I saw Tonn with his spey rod bent double and an immense Deschutes fish on the end of the line. He uttered a succinct summary of the situation: "I got a unit."
The steelhead took short, powerful runs that pushed the 15lb Maxima to its limit as I scrambled down the grassy bank and approached the boiling water. With a little luck and some heavy lifting on Tonn's part, I managed to scoop the fish up in the net on the first try, followed by some cries of jubilation and celebratory high-fives.
Far and away, it was the biggest fish I have witnessed in person on the Deschutes. We surmised it was a lost B-run steelhead destined for Clearwater, a mere 370 miles from its destination by car. As Tonn tailed it and pulled it from the net for a photo, it appeared as if he was unsheathing a giant red and steel-colored sword. After a few pictures, we watched it disappear into the run.
Tonn hooked the fish in nearly the exact spot we caught our fish the evening before, so I cycled into the top of the run, not believing I would find a fish of that caliber again, much less any steelhead. I ambled down the run and into the bucket as Tonn saw a fish surface below my fly. I confidently let loose a cast and called my shot as the fly hit the meat of the swing, and not a second later, the line started peeling off the reel, and I came tight to the fish. The reel screamed, and the fish went airborne into a spinning cartwheel, and the fly launched out of its jaws. The fish did not match the previous catch in weight or length, but it was an impressive run and a fun hookup.
Ultimately, losing a fish doesn't matter, but as steelhead fly anglers, it can be imperative to improve little things because there may be days or weeks when the details are the difference between bringing a fish to hand or a brief engagement. Meticulous attention to gear and technique is a game-changer when it comes to actually landing the steelhead that eats your fly. I am no good at this part of my personal fishing sometimes; I don't check my hooks, I'll use old tippet attached to my sink tip and not have my drag tuned to the correct resistance. All these things have lost me steelhead in the past, and it can be easy to overlook because the repetitive nature of swinging flies can lull you into a trance of complacency.
That complacency loses fish at the end of the day. Check your hooks for sharpness and change them out if they're dull, inspect your tippet for wind knots if you let a few casts get away from you, and always pay attention to what your line and fly are doing in the water. It only takes one cast, and we will never know which one until you feel the tug. Mindset is more important than the fly, and dedicating yourself to the details of the pursuit pays dividends in the long run.
The early morning excitement faded into noon, and we decided to lay over in our same camp for the final night and explore the water further downstream by walking the tracks. Ultimately, the walk downstream was futile. We only found more anglers and the skunk, although not nearly as spry, purportedly run down by the chugging locomotives. The camp-robbing bandit lay dead on the tracks, joining around steelhead woes as a thing of the past.
Layover
Tonn jumped in a run above camp, and I followed him through after he made his way downstream. The river created a large pocket of dead water above me before it flattened into a long slick to the next rapid. The weather remained perfect for steelhead throughout the trip, with low clouds and comfortable temperatures, keeping confidence high throughout the sunniest parts of the day.
I impatiently entered the run too soon; I trudged a few more feet upstream to put space between Tonn and me. The words, start short, rang through my head as I stripped line out the reel, and I did, considering I needed to let Tonn work further downstream before I could work my cast towards the middle of the run. Ultimately, I only needed the Skagit head and a few strips of running line to hook the largest steelhead I've had the pleasure to catch on the Deschutes, to my surprise, the fish slammed my fly perpendicular to Tonn's starting point.
The take came out of nowhere; I was not anticipating picking Tonn's pocket, but it was a pleasant surprise. One minute, we were joking about something, and the next minute, we were in a panic, trying to land the fish as best as possible. The fish rolled and pulled, but the fight was short and sweet, as is many of my steelhead battles. I have yet to meet the fish that makes me see my backing on a 7wt spey rod, regardless, the take and the initial pull is what it is all about. The tug is a brief experience that encapsulates the beauty in the casting and thought process of chasing these fish. Cast after cast, the line swings down below until one lucky cast; the fly finds a way into the mouth of the fish that just so happened to be in the right place at the right time.
After the fight is over and the fish is back in the water, I feel like it never happened or will never happen again, as if that one instance is isolated and unique. Then, to chase it over and over again, each take a different experience from the next. This feeling is addicting and is why steelhead fishing takes up my time and thoughts lately because of the predictable unpredictability that dictates the nature of the pursuit. Anglers can pick the likely water and the beautiful fly, but feedback from the fish, whether it is a bump, boil, follow, or hookup, leaves you wondering why it did what it did and what the angler did other than throw something on a string through the water. Catching a single steelhead in a day is enough, it sates the need for a fish more than trout fishing. A single trout in a day makes me wonder what I did wrong, whereas one steelhead in a day makes me wonder what I did right.
This feeling may fade over time, but based on the stories, emotions, and portrayal of steelhead anglers and their quarry, I do not see it going anywhere soon. This is the last steelhead Tonn and I caught over the evening and the following day on the water. The float to the takeout took the better part of the day anyhow, and there was limited time to fish. We loaded the boats on the trailers and headed south.
Another steelhead trip was in the books, but by the time I got home, I was scheming up a day on the Clearwater and a trip to the John Day over Thanksgiving week.
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