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Ten Tips For Conquering Northwest Tributary Steelhead

By: Cameron Black

January 2, 2024

The Pacific Northwest has an incredible array of different types of waters to chase steelhead. With rivers that flow from steep rainforests, deep desert canyons, or tidally influenced estuaries, you’ll need to adjust your timing within all these unique environments to be able to find productive fishing. Steelhead can enter these streams throughout the year, and being in front of them is the only way to catch them. Research what particular river you’re interested in before heading out to determine if it has a summer or winter run, or both. East of the Cascade Mountain streams will have summer steelhead but the fisheries are predominantly in the late fall and winter. Understanding when the bulk of these fish will be present will put you in the best position for success.

Table of Contents

Be Precise With What River You're Fishing

The Pacific Northwest has an incredible array of different types of waters to chase steelhead. With rivers that flow from steep rainforests, deep desert canyons, or tidally influenced estuaries, you’ll need to adjust your timing within all these unique environments to be able to find productive fishing.

Steelhead can enter these streams throughout the year, and being in front of them is the only way to catch them. Research what particular river you’re interested in before heading out to determine if it has a summer or winter run, or both.

East of the Cascade Mountain streams will have summer steelhead but the fisheries are predominantly in the late fall and winter. Understanding when the bulk of these fish will be present will put you in the best position for success.

Being precise with your river choice can help you land on fresh, bright steelhead such as this one

Adjust To Stocking Reports

Within the timing of the runs, there are hatchery plants dotted throughout the region. As an example, the steelhead that are sometimes referred to as “A run” or “Early” winters are actually a segregated stock that is purposely planted in some streams to not interfere with the wild returning stocks that will show later in the winter.

These runs of steelhead don’t exist naturally without hatchery supplementation so even if the reports are that steelhead fishing is productive in the region, there will only be fish in those select rivers. State Fish and Wildlife Departments publish these stocking reports and sometimes even forecast the returning run, they are easily searched online.

Is The River Open To Fish?

The rivers in the NW that are stocked with hatchery steelhead are generally open when the fish are available for harvest. Current policies actually don’t want these fish spawning in the gravel of the river so harvest is a huge management tool for increasing or decreasing the plant to avoid interactions with wild fish.

With that said, there will be rivers that are open to steelhead fishing but have no hatchery plants. Generally speaking, these rivers have a good population of wild steelhead that can be impacted negatively by sport fishing and therefore remain open during times of the year when there are no hatchery fish. Wild winter steelhead also arrive later in the winter and spawn March through May, so arriving early in the season to a “wild-only” river probably finds challenging numbers of fish.

Know Where Your Fish Are Going

Within many rivers of the NW the placement of the hatcheries, dams, and spawning grounds will play a critical role in where and when you should fish. If it’s early in the timing of a particular run, fish will hold lower in the streams, especially if there hasn't been the necessary rains to trigger the fish to move.

If you’re targeting a hatchery run, always seek fish below the hatchery, especially in lower water situations. With some of the dam-controlled rivers, consistent flows allow the steelhead to charge up at their will and will prevent stacking just above the tidal areas.

After heavy rains or later in the season, fish will hopefully be where they are getting ready to spawn. Targeting the upper reaches of open fishable waters or at the base of a hatchery ladder will be productive areas. If it rains early in the run timing, heading directly to these areas will eliminate a lot of guesswork on where the fish will be.

Steelhead move quick, and being able to predict their movements will help you land on the largest number of fish in the system

Are The Fish Moving Or Are You Moving To The Fish?

One behavior I notice from NW steelheaders from time to time is “falling in love” with a particular stretch of water for a bit too long. Fish prefer to move during low light or high cover situations. Whether that cover is from higher consistent flows from a dam, or muddied waters from a recent rain, steelhead don’t like to stick out in the open when they don’t have to.

With that said, fishermen who have had success on a particular body of water will “camp” well after they should have moved on. After arriving at a spot and offering all your arsenal of proven fish-catching baits and techniques to the steelhead there, if more fish aren’t going to show, shouldn’t you move along?

There are many a day chasing steelhead where I’ve easily spent more time moving from place to place than fishing, but if the fish aren’t moving, you should be. If the water is up and the fish have cover so they can move all day, you can absolutely camp in productive water and if you’ve timed the run correctly, you can have an assembly line of fish coming to you all day. These can be some of the most productive days of the year as you’ll spend minimal time moving and more time casting at fresh steelhead.

Scout Or Fish It Low...

Studying the rivers closest to your home can eliminate lost windshield time while providing shorter opportunities to fish. Breaking down your “home waters” will allow you to learn how fish move and hold in different water conditions and heights. It’s not enough to just know “good spots”, you need to adjust to fish “spots within spots.”

If you were only to fish stretches of water during high or prime conditions, you may not be able to see key structures like a bedrock groove or hidden deep boulder that would be an ideal holding position for a steelhead. Breaking down steelhead runs to little holding spots will allow you to efficiently go through these areas and leave no stone unturned, but only if you know they are there.

Take A Drive On The Weekend

Think you’ve got a good game plan with a river that you’ve timed to where there should be fish around? One of the best ways to confirm that is to take a drive on the weekend when conditions are favorable to good steelheading.

Check local parks, boat ramps, and public access points and see if anglers are giving it a shot. One nice thing about the NW is even during the busiest of times you can always find those little secret haunts that you’ll have to yourself, but if you’re just getting your feet wet hunting steelhead, it’s worth checking in on what your fellow anglers are doing.

When In Rome...

If you’re finding productive areas to fish that are inhabited by other anglers and you’re not sure what technique to employ, sometimes it’s best just to fall in line. Most techniques, whether it be bobber-dogging, float fishing, throwing spinners, side drifting, etc, require their own amount of speed to effectively fish.

A bobber-dogging rig doesn’t travel as fast as a float and jig and in tight quarters, you’ll find that different techniques don’t mesh well. Communicating with other anglers is always ideal as the last thing an angler wants is someone interrupting their day. Marry up the same technique and fish the water as efficiently as multiple anglers can. I will say, just because you see someone running one technique doesn’t mean it’s the right one, but anglers just beginning this game will do themselves right by watching and learning.

Hire A Guide

Over the years, I have had many, many clients that chased steelhead for multiple years without success on their own. After talking and figuring out a date to bring them out, usually within the first few moments of the trip it’s pretty easy to identify what may have been the reason they haven’t connected with a steelhead. Could be timing, targeting the wrong parts of the river, using the wrong presentations, or just spending too much time fishing when the river is devoid of fish.

Either way, sometimes the fee a guide charges can save countless hours and headaches trying to put all the pieces together. To connect with steelhead, you have to have everything going for you, sometimes it takes another person's advice to get you that last piece.

A happy client also makes for a happy guide! Here's a big hatchery steelhead

Don't Chase Reports

As tempting as it might be, scouring the Internet for the latest intel can only lead to chasing your tail. Steelhead fishing is mostly understanding and utilizing the conditions to your advantage. Rivers fall and drop in a matter of hours and you’ll have to predict where you’ll want to be on that particular half of the day.

By the time anglers have had a great day of steelheading, made it home, and posted pictures or reported on it, those conditions have changed dramatically. Heading to the river the following day usually just leads to an increase in pressure and less-than-ideal conditions. Always have the mentality of making the reports, not chasing the reports…

Bonus Tip, Bring Someone Along

Catching steelhead is almost a right of passage in the NW. Countless people have helped me in my lifetime of steelhead fishing that began once I knew about a steelhead and haphazardly hooked into my first one while riding my bike down to the river. Eventually, I could have learned what I know now on my own, but engaging in this sport puts us in contact with many great mentors and, honestly, makes steel heading much better as a whole.

We as anglers are sadly becoming a dying breed in the NW. License sales are down, our youth aren’t engaging in the sport like we did, and bad policies and restrictions are making it that much harder for someone to get excited about fishing. We have the fish we have now because we cared about them and wanted a fish to catch, not one to study about in a museum. Without anglers going forward, we won’t have these fisheries in the years to come.

Bring someone along, educate the public about real steelhead management, and as always, take every opportunity to bring kids along. Without them, we won’t have a fishery to enjoy for long.