Favorite Steelhead Flies

True story. A few days ago, I was fishing with my buddy Dylon Hoelzli on Elk Creek near Erie, PA, and overhead a group of guys talking about how could there be so many fish in the streams, yet so few of them willing to bite. These five guys were bantering back and forth and one of them said, “The best steelhead fly I know of is called The Magnet. It’s red with silver tips.”

“Oh yeah?” another guy said. “Is this like a streamer fly?”

“No,” the first guy replied, “it’s horseshoe-shaped and doesn’t even need a hook. It doesn’t catch anything else. It doesn’t work on brown trout or brook trout. It doesn’t even work on rainbow trout. The Magnet only catches steelhead.”

There was a moment of silence. A couple of guys groaned. I may have laughed out loud.

In some ways, every day of steelhead season is akin to the opening day of trout back in the spring. When fishermen gather a little too closely, and go a little too long without catching anything, you never know what wisecracks you’ll hear next. But eventually, the conversation always circles back around to one thing: what are they biting on?

Steelhead are finicky, unpredictable fish whose moods change from day to day, and sometimes minute to minute. Catch one on a pink egg pattern and you’ll think you’ve got them figured out. Catch another on that same pattern and you’ll think you’ve struck gold. And then you won’t catch another fish on that pink egg for the rest of the day.

It’s easy to misinterpret this to mean that steelhead are smart, but I think their finicky nature is more a result of situation. Steelhead enter the creeks this time of year to spawn. Feeding isn’t at the top of their to-do list. And if you think they have to feed eventually, consider this little nugget I also overheard on the stream and later verified through research: spawning steelhead can go 2 to 6 months without feeding on a regular basis.

This lack of need to feed means they can afford to be selective. There are days when fish target specific colors or presentations. There are also days when they’re just feeding on a whim, plucking whatever catches their interest at that moment. It begs the question, what flies should you have in your fly box to ensure that you have what they might want on any particular day?

My steelhead fly box is amazingly simple. I don’t carry a huge variety of patterns. Rather, I have a handful of patterns in several different colors. I’ll list a few of my favorite steelhead flies here for fishing the Lake Erie tributaries.