Page 4 - Blog

Back near the Dawn of Time—the 1950s—a chap named Esmond Drury designed a shrimpy-looking Atlantic salmon fly in response to a ban on prawns as bait in salmon rivers. He called his fly The General Practitioner and the name stuck. Over the next few decades, as flyfishing for steelhead took hold in North America, fly-fishers looked to the Atlantic salmon traditions for guidance and inspiration, and the General Practitioner—now known more simply as the GP—found its way into the fly boxes of Pacific Northwest steelhead anglers.

House of Fly's Missouri River Trout Spey Camp offers an opportunity to learn all things trout spey from one of the Missouri River's absolute trout spey gurus, Mr. Fred Telleen. And, you just might put the biggest brown trout of your life in the bottom of the net.

Calvin Fuller's steelhead education started on the banks of Washington State's Skagit River and was assisted by some of the most legendary names in steelheading, including Harry Lemiere, Dec Hogan, and Ed Ward, among others. Here's Calvin's story.

Darren Wood tests LOC waders on Norway's Orkla River and decides whether the product is worth a $1,600 price tag or not.

House of Fly's Saga Spey Rod may be the best tool for landing Idaho's Clearwater River steelhead.

Breaking norms, like fishing fast instead of slow, can lead you to more steelhead on the Pacific Northwest's wildest rivers.

For steelhead anglers who prefer the swung fly, Idaho’s Clearwater River stands out as one of the premier fisheries in the Lower 48. It’s a big, broad river with a reliable return of large fish and offers miles of prime water that’s tailor-made for spey casting.

Author Sam Wike buys a flats skiff and takes on the daunting challenge of Islamorada's bonefish.

Truth is, steelhead do take during the middle of the day, in bright sun, but you probably won’t raise one to the surface at that time. Instead, these fish find deep runs, slots, chutes, and plunge pools and hold close to bottom. You can also find summer steelhead holding in the shadows that ledge-rock provides . . . and you’ll find plenty of that shadowy ledge-rock on Idaho’s Clearwater River, Oregon’s Deschutes and North Umpqua rivers, and Washington’s Klickitat, among others.